If I’m lucky, 87 years old, by Whorehouse heart attack. How’s that for dying doing something you love?
Would I off myself if I got a terminal illness?
Working in the ER, I have often asked myself this question, and haven’t been able to come up with a definite answer.
On the one hand, I don’t wanna hurt like I see some of my patients hurting, but on the other, I get a lot of enjoyment from my grandkids, and although I think they’d understand, I’m wondering if I might not be being selfish by asking for a morphine drip, and missing out on seeing their lives developing?
Or am I being selfish, by wanting to hang around and making everyone’s life harder because I am suffering?
The only definite answer I have been able to come up with is: Hanging in there as long as there’s some kind of hope, and asking for that drip when the “time” comes and hope I will be able to recognize it.
But to off myself right away, without giving medical science a chance to turn me around? No.
Not at age 56, anyway.
Q
[QUOTE=NinjaChick]
As long as I’m still physically active (not by nursing-home standards, by normal standards), I’ll be happy. As soon as that starts going, I’ll probably ditch the safety precautions and end up riding my bike off a cliff or something. I’ve seen 50-year-olds who can kick my ass, and I’ve seen people start withering away way too early.
Granted, the way my knees have been since I was a teenager, that’ll probably be sometime a decade or two from now.
[/QUOTE]
Hey, we should organize a group thing in a few years. We can be like the lemmings and ride off the cliffs in a big group. 
…joking
[QUOTE=LionelHutz405]
“Smoking will kill me 10 years earlier” is a lot easier to handle than 'Smoking will put me on oxygen, unable to do ANYTHING fun for my final 10 years."
[/QUOTE]
Indeed. If there’s a worse way to go than lung cancer & emphysema, I don’t need to know about it. (I had a dear Aunt who went this way.)
Among those who die of the consequences of an unhealthy habit, at least 10 suffer and linger for each one that goes quickly and peacefully.
My dad died 30 years from my age, my grandfathers at 15 and 50 years.
So I’m trying to decide whether to save for a long retirement or borrow so much they can never get it back in time 
[QUOTE=Chasing Dreams]
For me, the meaning of life is to do things that I find fun while obeying the Golden Rule. I don’t need to live to an old age to decide that one. Well, actually there is no “meaning of life”. Once you die, you will return to the ground and become nothing more.
[/QUOTE]
As for me, there is no meaning in fun for fun’s sake. There is only fun.* I don’t know what the meaning of life is. I only glimpse the meaningfulness of my own existence through my relationships and encounters with others.
Death may be the end of consciousness, which sucks to be sure, but the love, compassion, loyalty, forgiveness, and generosity we’ve shared persists. The world may no longer affect us when we’re dead, but it certainly continues being affected by us.
*Longer way to run,
But it’s so much fun
Fun will take the longer way around
You can take a shorter cut
Yes, it’s quicker, but
Fun will take the longer way around
Long Way Around, George Clinton / Parliament
[QUOTE=Eve]
No. No, you really do not want to get old and demented in a nursing home. Trust me on this one. It is not cool.
[/QUOTE]
Seconded.
I’m planning on chartering a cargo plane on my 100th birthday. I’ll then have that plane fly over Everest and open the cargo door. I’m gonna hop on my motorcycle, gun the throttle and fly out of the back of the plane.
Not only will it me a great way to go, but I’ll always have the title of the oldest man on top of Everest. Theoretically, I’ll still be alive when I first reach the summit.
[QUOTE=Xema]
And the notion that those in their twenties should be planning their death is simply bizarre. Why not allow for the possibility that you’ll learn and change a bit in the next 20 years?
[/QUOTE]
Not to mention terribly optimistic. Why not allow for the possibility that you’ll die in the next 20 years?
[QUOTE=Xema]
Why not allow for the possibility that you’ll learn and change a bit in the next 20 years?
[/QUOTE]
Sod twenty. I had it all figured out at 15, 17, 20, 22 and 25, but it was never the same “all” that I had figured out. I’m now 29 and have changed significantly just in the space of the last few years.
Chasing Dreams, take it easy. If you want to die when you are fifty, then by all means go ahead. No need to plan for it now.
[QUOTE=Xema]
And the notion that those in their twenties should be planning their death is simply bizarre. Why not allow for the possibility that you’ll learn and change a bit in the next 20 years?
[/QUOTE]
Why not plan it? It’s not like it’s set in stone or anything; chances that any of us will go out the way we “plan” to is miniscule, but thinking about how you’d like to go is kinda fun, and imagining that you’ll be able to control the way you die makes it less frightening.