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The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-07-2007, 08:21 PM
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#1
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Oahu
Posts: 26,856
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The danger of knowing your lifespan...
"What do you MEAN I'm not going to die?!?"
"He quit his job, sold or gave away nearly all his possessions, stopped paying his mortgage and spent his savings dining out and going on holiday. Brandrick was left with little more than the black suit, white shirt and red tie that he had planned to be buried in when it emerged a year later that his suspected 'tumor' was no more than a non-life threatening inflammation of the pancreas."
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-07-2007, 08:27 PM
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#2
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 718
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
Oops
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-07-2007, 08:28 PM
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#3
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Northern, Florida
Posts: 925
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
What a moron. Maybe he should have spent some of his savings on a second opinion.
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Retired in 2006 at age 49.
"Who among us is smart enough to learn from the mistakes of others?" - Voltaire
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-07-2007, 08:43 PM
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#4
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 858
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
He did better than all of us who will die with the money.
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-07-2007, 08:45 PM
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#5
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Minneapolis
Posts: 4,455
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
That's too bad. Sometimes the prognosis can be wrong.
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May we live in peace and harmony and be free from all human sufferings.
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-07-2007, 08:47 PM
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#6
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: May 2004
Location: SW Ohio
Posts: 14,404
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
Well, this could have happened in the US, too, so I'll forego the jokes about the quality of "free" health care.
Ooops.
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-07-2007, 08:50 PM
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#7
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Gone but not forgotten
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Sarasota,fl.
Posts: 11,447
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
I had a older close friend who was given six months to live .She said her good -byes to everybody and lived twenty more years .Oops !
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-07-2007, 09:55 PM
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#8
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 5,105
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Moemg
I had a older close friend who was given six months to live .She said her good -byes to everybody and lived twenty more years .Oops !
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Did she tell anyone off?
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Sometimes death is not as tragic as not knowing how to live. This man knew how to live--and how to make others glad they were living. - Jack Benny at Nat King Cole's funeral
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-07-2007, 10:38 PM
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#9
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 699
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
In retrospect, he should have bought an annuity, THEN lived it up on the payout from that. Fob off that annoying longevity risk on someone else.
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-08-2007, 12:10 AM
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#10
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 3,895
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
knowledge can be tricky especially when what we know is wrong. so this would actually be the danger of not knowing your lifespan or of knowing wrongly.
good example of how the capacity to understand can be more useful than the capacity for knowledge. had only he understood, it wouldn't have mattered quite so much what he knew or didn't know.
as he considers suing the hospital because he tried to cheat his mortgage company, it seems, after even this life lesson, he still is not close to understanding. and if he doesn't understand, then it doesn't matter what he knows.
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"off with their heads"~~dr. joseph-ignace guillotin
"life should begin with age and its privileges and accumulations, and end with youth and its capacity to splendidly enjoy such advantages."~~mark twain - letter to edward kimmitt 1901
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-08-2007, 03:11 AM
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#11
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 5,072
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
Once one gets past the sad and tramatic aspect of the mortality issue... The article reads kinda like a corny sitcom story.
I must admit, it would be tempting to whoop-it-up and have a good time in the final days while still feeling good. Too bad he didn't seek a second, third, and fourth opinion before he spent it all.
I guess this is a good lesson about the importance of hedging. He should have only spent half of all of his worldly possessions!
My guess is that he didn't have much to begin with.
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-08-2007, 03:22 AM
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#12
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 1,691
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
Hey if you can sue for $65 million because the cleaners lost your pants,
he should be able to sue because he didn't die on time.
TJ
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-08-2007, 06:14 AM
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#13
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 11,318
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
Quote:
Originally Posted by teejayevans
Hey if you can sue for $65 million because the cleaners lost your pants,
he should be able to sue because he didn't die on time.
TJ
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He could demand that they make him whole by lethal injection.
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Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre -- Albert Camus
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-08-2007, 06:17 AM
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#14
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 491
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
Quote:
Originally Posted by dmpi
He did better than all of us who will die with the money.
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Joking or serious? Running out of money before dying is hardly better than dying with money in the bank.
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-08-2007, 07:15 AM
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#15
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 207
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
So this is why they say, "Bad information is worse than no information."
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Can eat with either hand.
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-08-2007, 09:11 AM
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#16
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: nyc
Posts: 100
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
ouch.
but what a terribly silly thing to do. If I was given a year to live, first I'd go for a 2nd & then 3rd opinion. I don't think one can be too sure about something like that.
then yeah, I'd live it up some, do some travelling that I've never done. But I think a lot of time would be spend figuring out who I'm going to give my stuff & money too (I've been thinking about will-writing lately).
even if it WAS a mistake, I'd still have stuff to fall back on, 'cause the charities (and friends/family) wouldn't get my money until I was scattered to the winds.
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-08-2007, 10:15 AM
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#17
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: west bloomfield MI
Posts: 2,223
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
history has always repeated itself.
When the world makes something idiot proof, the world has ALWAYS, 100% of the time, created a bigger idiot.
this article is just one such example.
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Light travels faster than sound. That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. One person's stupidity is another person's job security.
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-08-2007, 10:39 AM
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#18
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Pacific latitude 20/49
Posts: 7,677
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
Our friend has pancreatic cancer. Discovered in Scottsdale and confirmed in Edmonton. It has metasticized into his lungs and brain. He is spending the time left getting his affairs in order.
I think he would be glad to have no money but have his health back. I doubt he would waste any of his life suing doctors.
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For the fun of it...Keith
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-08-2007, 01:55 PM
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#19
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 3,895
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
hey nords, where's the "would you make significant change to your lifestyle if you knew when you were going to die?" poll?
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"off with their heads"~~dr. joseph-ignace guillotin
"life should begin with age and its privileges and accumulations, and end with youth and its capacity to splendidly enjoy such advantages."~~mark twain - letter to edward kimmitt 1901
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
05-08-2007, 02:06 PM
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#20
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: New Orleans
Posts: 47,474
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Re: The danger of knowing your lifespan...
Quote:
Originally Posted by lazygood4nothinbum
hey nords, where's the "would you make significant change to your lifestyle if you knew when you were going to die?" poll?
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Guess what, I'd quit work. 8)
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Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, harbourless immensities. - - H. Melville, 1851.
Happily retired since 2009, at age 61. Best years of my life by far!
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