You’re going to die. You can stop worrying about that. It’s going to happen.  But how you will die is the great mystery of your life. Suspenseful, chalkboard-grating music. Or is it?

While there’s a chance you’ll die in mysterious or unexpected circumstances, there’s a far better chance you’ll die of heart disease in a hospital bed decades from now.  While you could be murdered, it’s way more likely you’ll kill yourself, unless you’re black. In that case, you’re slightly more likely to die from assault.

We’re all more likely to die in a car accident than by any sort of cide. But here’s the sad truth: You probably don’t need to worry about heights, snakes, Arabs, Crack addicts, vengeful women or men with mustaches who drive generic vans. They won’t get you, because they and you will probably going to die of some sort of painful ailment first.

If not heart disease, cancer. If not cancer, stroke. If not stroke, then emphysema.

My intent is not to scare you or get you to worry about things you need not. If you are about 25 to 30, you probably have a good 54 years left on this crusty orb.

I just want you to know that death isn’t a huge mystery. Perhaps it’s even scarier to think about how predictable death is.

If you ever wince at the prospect of imminent death, I’d suggest you focus your worries on the things that you can control. Because even if we don’t know exactly how we will die, we can probably guess based on the following list:

1. Heart Disease
Since you began reading this article, someone has died from Heart Disease. If you’re a slow reader, two people have died from it. It’s not your fault, it’s just this extraordinary machine may be bound to fail. Coronary Artery Disease is the most common plague of the heart, along with indifference.

If you make it into your 30s, there is a good chance your heart will fail because your little love pump is negatively impacted by almost anything in life provides some easy, gluttonous fun. Hypertension, high cholesterol and Diabetes can all result from overeating, and they are the leading causes of heart disease.

Terrorists are not building Hometown Buffets across America. But they should be. Our diet is the terrorist we love. A WWII propaganda poster read “When You Drive Alone, You Drive With Hitler.” Perhaps now we need a poster that says “Osama Wants You to Have Seconds.”

Don’t laugh. Another person just died of heart disease. Or two if you’re reading instead of skimming.

Other things besides food you put in your mouth that may cause Heart Disease: Cigarettes, sex hormones and birth control pills if you’re over 35 and smoke. High stress and low levels of physical activities also make it easier for your heart to fail. As it just did in someone who was alive when you started reading this article.

Slight amounts of alcohol (like two servings a day for men and one for women) actually might prevent Heart Disease, but if you don’t drink, you probably shouldn’t start since it can lead to Obesity, which leads to Heart Disease, which just killed another person.

2. Cancer
If Heart Disease doesn’t kill you, it’ll probably be Cancer because, as you know, everything causes Cancer. Together these first two ailments are responsible for 50% of deaths every year. Just about any time someone dies of Heart Disease–as someone else just did–a few seconds later, someone dies of Cancer.

As far back as the Ancient Greeks, the mysterious and insidious growing of extra cells has hounded man. Lung Cancer is the most common Cancer by a long shot with Colon, Breast, Prostate, Pancreas and Lymphoma trailing far behind. The probable causes range from obvious—obesity, smoking, trying to build atomic weapons—to the amorphous and ubiquitous—power lines, cell phones, red M&Ms.

If you’re a woman over 40, you should get a mammogram every year. Older dudes need to get a regular finger up the butt. But besides that, stay out of the sun, eat healthy stuff and sit further back from the TV. That will help you enjoy your life and, hopefully, will prevent you from ever getting Cancer. But the odds aren’t great.

3. Stroke
Here we arrive at a slightly more preventable disease.

Stroke shuts off blood to your brain. You’re more likely to have a stroke if you smoke, are obese, abuse cocaine, amphetamines or ephedrine. Basically anything that gives you too much pleasure has a price, as does just living with the body you have for five or six decades.

Daily aspirin appears to help prevent strokes. But before you listen to any advice from me, check with a doctor and a psychologist. Because this is just some bullshit blog.

4. Emphysema/ Chronic Bronchitis
Don’t smoke.

5. Accidents
Finally we get to the real villain—accidents, the absurd thief of life. These too are somewhat preventable.

1 out of 84 of us will die in a traffic accident–1 out 34 from some accident in general. Car accidents are the most common killer followed by falling, poisoning, drowning and burning. Handgun accidents aren’t as common as I would have thought, but—in my opinion—the most preventable accident waiting to happen in any home.

But here’s the point I’m hammering home. A lot of people die in cars. Over 40,000 Americans every year. The chief cause of these accidents is speeding, which means they are largely preventable. Failures to yield or obey signs and signals also account for a large number of accidents, also preventable. Half of all accidents involve intoxicants, completely preventable.

There is a real cost to driving like an asshole. And I point that out only to remind myself.

(Just to break this up a bit, I’d like to point out that about ten more people have died of heart disease since you read about Cancer.)

6. Diabetes
Diabetes could be way higher on this list because it’s often misdiagnosed as hypertension or some other ailment. It’s that sneaky and pervasive.

You could be born with Diabetes, abnormally high blood sugar. If you weren’t that lucky, don’t worry, you can still eat your way into Diabetes. About 7 million Americans have Diabetes. 20 million have Pre-Diabetes not including the many women who contract Gestational Diabetes during pregnancy. If you pee a lot or have generally unhealthy eating habits, you should take this risk assessment.

The only thing you can do to prevent Diabetes is to eat a healthy diet. Actually, that’s one of the only things you can do to prevent most diseases since you must have quit smoking by now, especially because someone else just died of Heart Disease.

7. Flu and Pneumonia
8. Alzheimer’s
These two killers are closely entwined since most Alzheimer’s patients end up dying of Pneumonia. I also think that dying of these two diseases could also be labeled as dying of old age, which is a pretty great thing when you think about it.

9. Nephritis
Here’s our first surprise: Kidney Disease. Closely linked to Diabetes, nephritis is infection of the Kidney and kills nearly 40,000 Americans a year. It’s caused by all the usual suspects—obesity, smoking, hypertension—but excessive use of over-the-counter painkillers also is linked to Nephritis (but only if you’re already at risk of Kidney Disease), along with abuse of heroin and cocaine.

If you get a bad sore throat, be sure to get a throat culture because infections like Strep can lead to Nephritis.

All and all, I really recommend not dying from nephritis since no one will really “get” what you died from. It’s just not very hip.

10. Septicemia
Another obtuse disease. It’s basically bacteria in your blood. It looks like a bad fever with red blotches, chills, high heart rate. Half of the people who go into Septic Shock die, so if you suspect it at all, get to a hospital.

Septicemia is why we use Bactine and get our childhood vaccinations. Treat all wounds to prevent infections and wash your hands pretty much constantly. Washing your hands constantly, by constantly I mean 20-22 hours a day, will also reduce your opportunities to smoke and overeat.

11. Suicide
Yep, the person that’s most likely to kill you is you.

And I’m not talking about the slow death that you can eat, drink and smoke yourself to; I’m talking about real murder, self-murder. And I’m recommending against it, though I see the short-term appeal. We all want to be Tom Sawyer watching our mean aunts and bosses sobbing at our funerals, but it probably doesn’t happen that way. I’ll let you know when I do.

Here’s a good point to drop some sad science about the death of a spouse as a risk factor for death. If your spouse dies, your chances of dying are 2.5 times greater of dying the next year. The first six-months are the hardest, and it’s worse for men than for women. All of that makes perfect sense to me.

Suicides actually decrease before birthdays and holidays and increase shortly thereafter.

The gory details: Most people shoot themselves, another great reason not to have a gun around. Hanging, poisoning, jumping, cutting, drowning and fire follow in that order.

The number one way to prevent suicide is to ask for help. If you’re worrying about whom to ask, pick someone and ask him or her who’d they ask. Asking is the key. Worrying makes it worse.

12. Cirrhosis
Don’t drink (much).

13. Hypertension
High blood pressure isn’t just a symptom of trouble. It can actually kill you. 1 out of 4 Americans suffer from Hypertension. Most don’t die from it because there are several drugs that can treat Hypertension. Eating whole foods while avoiding salt helps prevent it as well. You can check yourself for high blood pressure.

The most preventable trigger for high blood pressure is Anger, which I define as trying to control someone else by attacking in some way. It’s as addictive as all the other bad stuff and just as harmful. Managing your anger is a great way to get more out of life. It also leaves more time for unproductive things like worrying and will probably keep you out of jail.

14. Parkinson’s Disease
Parkinson’s has entered the top 15 since 2002. It’s the chronic degeneration of the nervous system, and a super shitty way to go. Symptoms include extreme tremors and stiffness.

The rise of Parkinson’s is especially annoying because we don’t really know what causes it. It seems genetic but recently experts have been suggesting that there are environmental toxins that may be causing the disorder. The horrendous symptoms can only be slightly managed. There is nothing close to a cure in the works, and there won’t be until a sincere effort towards Stem Cell research begins.

15. Homicide
Look at all the things that’ll kill you before another human does. It’s sad that 1 in 217 of us will die from some sort of assault, but murder occupies much too large of a space in Worrysphere.

The baddies stalking us are our appetites. If you don’t smoke, eat junk food, drive a car, anger easily or use crank, you have my permission to worry about some stranger killing you. But keep this in mind: it probably wouldn’t be a stranger who kills you anyway.

* * *

Final word:

If you make it out of infancy, the ages 5-14 will be the safest of your entire life. But from the age of about 15 to 24 maybe you actually should be afraid of the cruel, grizzled palm of fate—especially when you’re driving. During those halcyon days the leading causes of death are, in the following order, accidents, homicide and suicide. Still less than 100 young adults out of 100,000 will die.

Once you get to 25, you should put on your seat belt when you’re eating and drinking. Your chances of dying will get a tiny bit worse every year, and you probably won’t die of anything too exciting. It’ll probably something slow and painful. And the culprit will likely be what you put into your body, mostly through you mouth.

So stop worrying about strangers and people of a different race. We know what will kills us: smoking, overeating and speeding.

You probably already knew the real things to fear–deep down in that part of your brain that recognizes your sister is your mom’s favorite and your doctor doesn’t need to check your prostate if you’re a woman.

But it’s so much easier to focus on the things we can’t control.

Now that you know how you’re going to die, go out and live a little bit. It probably won’t hurt you.

(The conjecture in this piece is completely dependent on Ben Best’s great work on The Causes of Death and the National Center for Health Statistic’s 2005 study. Please consult a physician before commenting.)

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