Someone died at work today. 40 years old

[comicbookgujy]

Same age as I am. Had a heart attack. Looked healthy.
Can't believe he just dropped and died. Every is speculating it was stress related(no idea of family heart history).


Sadly, this is the 5th person at work that I have known died in the last 2 years. The other were from cancer and injuries.
All relatively young(as least to me if they are not older than 50!).

Makes me want to retire even without being FI.

 

[powerplay]

Sorry to hear about your co-workers death. Only 40 years old is certainly young and we don't expect that to happen.

 

[Lazarus]

It is scary. More evidence that you need to get yourself free as soon as possible since we don't know how long we will last.

 

[ziggy29]

As workers are expected to endure longer hours and worse conditions as employers take advantage of a captive workforce caused by high unemployment, I only expect more of this in the future.

 

[ERhoosier]

Sorry to hear about this.
More perspective on the "OneMoreYear" syndrome.

 

[Aiming_4_55]

That's terrible.

DW and I are in our early 40s and hearing more and more of our circle of friends or old classmates running into health related issues.

Time to enjoy life more .... I started last year moving into contract work, less hours and less stress.

 

[ziggy29]

I understand correlation doesn't equal causation, but I find it interesting that men are closing the "life expectancy gap" with women and have been for three decades. In the 1980s, women lived about 7 years longer on average, and by 2010 it was down to 5 years.

There's a part of me that thinks women being subjected to w*rkplace stresses and BS on a widespread basis has something to do with that.

 

[Aiming_4_55]

I understand correlation doesn't equal causation, but I find it interesting that men are closing the "life expectancy gap" with women and have been for three decades. In the 1980s, women lived about 7 years longer on average, and by 2010 it was down to 5 years.

There's a part of me that thinks women being subjected to w*rkplace stresses and BS on a widespread basis has something to do with that.

I would agree 100%. My DW is a SAHM and always happy and full of laughter. This was not as true without kids and working outside of the house. Workplace stress is ugly.

 

[comicbookgujy]

I understand correlation doesn't equal causation, but I find it interesting that men are closing the "life expectancy gap" with women and have been for three decades. In the 1980s, women lived about 7 years longer on average, and by 2010 it was down to 5 years.

There's a part of me that thinks women being subjected to w*rkplace stresses and BS on a widespread basis has something to do with that.

Women live longer than men by 6 years on average and Japanese women on average will quit than try to climb the corporate ladder. Probably some correlation with their long life expectancy.

Women often have career interuppted due to child-birth so less time dealing with crap at the work place. Although in my work place, there's been 3 gals that just had babies and came back to work 1 month later!! CRAZY. Probably why the current generation of women will have a shorter life expectancy.

I was also surprised that USA rank the 40 in life expectancy

 

[youbet]

Makes me want to retire even without being FI.

Speaking with no knowledge of your personal situation, I'd only comment that, IMO, it's a serious mistake to continue to work at some occupation for some employer where you are not enjoying life because of your employment. "Sticking it out" in an unhappy employment situation just because it might lead to early FI is so wrong on so many levels.

If you're unhappy working doing what you do and where you're doing it, change! Time is by far the most precious asset you have. Don't piss it away in an unhappy situation.

 

[deserat]

This happened to a colleague in my husband's office - my husband happened to be out that day doing something else---it was very tragic as the emergency services showed up late and then got lost on their way to the hospital....very sad. He was a serious runner and in great shape, however, genetically speaking he had issues...his father had had to retire early due to health issues. It was tragic and also affected everyone in the office.....what bothered a lot of them was the poor emergency services response. He left behind two children and a widow.

 

[Ally]

That's really sad and I'm sorry that happened. That's a young age to die.

 

[obgyn65]

Sorry to read this.

 

[Badger]

Sorry to hear that stress may have caused his early passing. My wife keeps telling me that I really need to stop letting unimportant things bother me. I was lucky to have the opportunity to work at something I enjoyed even though the income was low so my stress has mostly been self induced. I've made it 24 years longer and would like to stick around another 24 years (in relatively good health) another 24 years to enjoy my recent retirement.

I should keep in mind a line from an old Jerry Jeff Walker song - "Life is mostly attitude and timing."

Cheers!

 

[Koogie]

I'm about to turn 40 as well and I feel and hear that kind of news around me all the time too. Stress is, IMHO, the absolute worst "environmental" factor that affects peoples health. Worse than being overweight, being unfit, etc... In fact, I often talk about this with other people because it is a very observable phenomenon. You'll see someone you know tangentially in business (vendor,client, whatever) who you know is under stress. Then you'll see them a year or two later and they seem to have aged a decade all due to stress. It really seems striking at this age as well because this is when people start to go bald or grey or get wrinkles, etc.. anyway so the stress just seems to physically destroy them.

About 5 years ago it was doing a number on me as well.. chest pains, panic attacks, the whole bit. This was during the hardcharging accumulation phase of my little "fortune" I figured "make hay while the sun shines" Well I did but it damn near killed me. Now that I have a bit of "F/U" money and can pick and choose business more the stress level has decreased (FI means security and freedom of choice to me.. a main factor behind being interested in FIRE anyway).
Also moved the office close to home and continued to improve diet/exercise, etc.. But reduction of stress was the #1 factor in improving my life (so far).

 

[Midpack]

Same age as I am. Had a heart attack. Looked healthy.
Can't believe he just dropped and died. Every is speculating it was stress related(no idea of family heart history).

Sadly, this is the 5th person at work that I have known died in the last 2 years. The other were from cancer and injuries.
All relatively young(as least to me if they are not older than 50!).

That is sad indeed. A good friend/co-worker that I hired, developed and saw promoted died suddenly of a heart attack at age 41. He appeared in good health, but he smoked up to 2 packs/day of non-filter Camels (we repeatedly tried to get him to quit) and his father had already had several heart attacks at a very young age. I still think about him often. I spoke at his services.

Makes me want to retire even without being FI.

And if you then live to 95? Fortunately most of us will live to a ripe old age...well documented.

 

[Rosie]

Carpe diem.

 

[walkinwood]

This made me look at an actuarial life table.
Actuarial Life Table

For males, by 40, almost 4,500 of every 100,000 people born alive are already dead.
As the previous poster said - Carpe Diem.

 

[Midpack]

At age 40, Carpe Diem for 1 in 20, and a mix of Carpe & Amitte Diem for 19 in 20. How do we know which group we're in...no reply necessary.

 

[panhead]

Damn, I'm 42 and have had some issues. Every time I read something like this it makes we want to speed up my RE.... It'd suck to work this hard for this long and to have saved this much only to kick the bucket and leave it all for someone else to enjoy.
...condolences to the family...

 

[Koogie]

At age 40, Carpe Diem for 1 in 20, and a mix of Carpe & Amitte Diem for 19 in 20. How do we know which group we're in...no reply necessary.

Family history ? Lifestyle choices ? Intuition ? Frankly, I think leave early and try and enjoy your years. I honestly don't think I'll live to "old age" and even if I did.. who gives a cr*p. A lot of really old people have a poor quality of life anyway so why plan for it. You want to be the richest person in the old age home ? To heck with that.

"no reply necessary.." See. I can't even follow instructions at a "young" age...

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

Damn, I'm 42 and have had some issues. Every time I read something like this it makes we want to speed up my RE.... It'd suck to work this hard for this long and to have saved this much only to kick the bucket and leave it all for someone else to enjoy.
...condolences to the family...

Also 42 and starting to see the effects of stress on my body. Some of that stress is from work, while a large part is also due to having a 3 year old and 4-month old at home and a wife who works full time in a stressful career. I've spoken with DW about both of us scaling back in a few years, as we already have a nice nest egg between the two of us. Primary concerns are college tuition for the kids and health insurance.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Family history ? Lifestyle choices ? Intuition ? Frankly, I think leave early and try and enjoy your years. I honestly don't think I'll live to "old age" and even if I did.. who gives a cr*p. A lot of really old people have a poor quality of life anyway so why plan for it. You want to be the richest person in the old age home ? To heck with that.
:

What I know of old rich people is this: money can't buy time when you are sick. And those with money instead of love/family/friends have a very very sad old age.
But to hear an old man tell of his adventures, with a twinkle in his eye and a chuckle in his voice...damn, that's the good stuff.

 

[REWahoo]

But to hear an old man tell of his adventures, with a twinkle in his eye and a chuckle in his voice...damn, that's the good stuff.

I'm doing everything I can to get there...

 

[Midpack]

I honestly don't think I'll live to "old age" and even if I did.. who gives a cr*p. A lot of really old people have a poor quality of life anyway so why plan for it. You want to be the richest person in the old age home ? To heck with that.

Right or wrong I "give a cr*p" because the fear of 'living under a bridge eating cat food' is much stronger than my fear of 'being the richest person in the old age home' for me, especially at age 58. There's certainly no guarantee the latter is the inevitable outcome as your post implies, it would be easy if that were the case. I will loosen up in time, ideally I'll die broke.

Again, only 1 in 22 males will go poof at 40. 1 in 13 at age 50, 1 in 7 at age 60, 1 in 3.5 at age 70 and 1 in 2 at 80 (IOW, the average life span). I'm inclined to plan using the real odds, not the sad & unfortunate exceptions.

I am sure our views are all biased by our expectations re: life span. My parents are both 91 and still ticking, so my views are likely distorted to one extreme. Others with family history of short lifespans or known health problems may be understandably skewed to the other extreme. And some may be probability/statistics challenged and just fear being one of the exceptions despite the odds against it...