Knowing Your End-date

A few months back I was watching The Bucket List, and the movie posed an interesting question. I'm not referring to the question that was the central theme of the movie: what would you do if you know you had X days left to live? There is another question that I find even more intriguing. If you could peer into the future and learn the exact time and date you are going to die, would you chose to know it? According to a scene in the movie, a survey was conducted and 94% of respondents said that they wouldn't want to know. The remaining 6% responded that they would like to know.

I'm really on the fence on this question. There are major advantages to knowing when your life will come to an end. You'd be able to say goodbye to those you care about and you'd get the opportunity to experience things before you passed away. (Although this whole idea is far too fatalistic for me) If you knew the exact date which you were going to die, then prior to this date you'd be able to do outrageous things that put your life in danger with the knowledge that you would survive!

Fatalistic thoughts aside, knowing your end-date would enable you to adequately plan and budget your remaining days. For example, if you discovered that you had a month left to live you'd be able to cram as much enjoyment into your remaining days as possible! However, if you found that you had 50 years left, you wouldn't be in such a rush.

The obvious drawback to knowing when you will die is the possibility that you will dread dying as the date comes closer and closer. I personally do not fear death, but since it is an unknown and I like living, it could present a....downgrade? It's probably easy for me to say this since I am 22 years old. Perhaps as I get older, I will feel differently. Anyhow, I'm not going to get into my views of the afterlife. That requires its own blog post! But I will say that we have a legitimate reason to fear death since it is a big question mark, and this could make our final days anxious ones.

Not knowing our end date would present us with the inverse advantages and disadvantages. It is possible that we won't have the opportunity for closure with friends and family and it is possible that we won't experience everything we wished to do. On the other hand, we wouldn't have to dread our end-date.

As of right now, if I had to pick a side, consider me part of the 6%.