“Sometimes women in families put themselves last,” Angelina Jolie recently told Vanity Fair.  “Until it manifests itself in their own health.”

Jolie makes a very important point. We face decisions every day about whether to put ourselves, or others, first.  That series of decisions, repeated day after day, forms a pattern of behavior that has a long-term impact on our lives, for better or for worse. It is possible that Angelina Jolie’s pattern of putting herself last has contributed to severa...