Do you want to know anyone's expiration dates?

Question

If you got to know when your loved ones would die....would you want to know? What about your own death? Why? Why not? Would you change how you live in any circumstance?

Answer 1

Nah. I wouldn't want to know. All I need to know is that we all die sometime. Honestly, I think questions like this make death even more terrifying for people. It is so natural, and the surest thing in our lives, yet people fight tooth-and-nail to postpone and/or prevent it. A beloved philosophy professor of mine once talked about how we spend so much time telling people how to live, but give virtually no attention to how to die. So much of this issue is caught up in religion and loss - which, really, is more about "survivors" than the deceased or dying (which we all are, all the time, anyway). Such a focus misses the point of a huge part of our existence and makes us fear and avoid the inevitable and, I'd argue, sometimes keeps us from living fully.

Of course, I'm not going to lie to you. I would be devastated and heartbroken if my daughter (or any child, for that matter) died young - I practically sobbed watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition on Sunday, about the single mom who lost her 16 year old son in a car wreck - but, for myself and others, I try to keep in mind that we all exist as participants in a cycle much larger than ourselves, one that has existed for eons. It's not in my power to stop it, and if I could, I wouldn't want to. I'll be honored when my time comes to push up a few daisies and feed a few worms (which is why I want a green funeral when I do expire). It's the natural order of things. As for my loved ones, I'm just ecstatic I've had the opportunity to live, laugh, love, and learn with them. I know their fate is the same as mine - worm food... and that's ok. They aerate the soil and help flowers and grass grow. And who wouldn't like that?

Answer 2

i knew a girl that could tell when and how people were going to die just by looking at them. i thought she was full of **** until she predicted the exact circumstances and date of the death of a friend (the friend was not sick-she died in a car wreck). she also, to a small degree, told me how i will die. while i like knowing a little about my own death, i saw what seeing how people will die can do to a person. she was always depressed and stressed out. she lived a miserable life and said that she would not wish this "gift" on anyone.
to answer your last question, i have not changed the way i live for two reasons: 1. i will die no matter what, i might as well go when i'm supposed to, 2. b/c we can't begin to contemplate the ramifications of living past our 'expiration date' every event that we take part in past that time would never be meant to happen. it would affect the lives of everyone we know, and everyone they know, and so on, and i don't want to take responsibility for altering the course of the universe!

Answer 3

I've done expiration dates and have no regrets. Understand how the death of my loved ones might be laid out before me. Yes, I'd listen and accept what I had to. Are not certain I'd be in a position to refuse hearing of such deaths. I've faced my own mortality in a foreign war. It was my training, mostly, and a willingness to die for my country. I'm too old to die as soldiers do on foreign soil but I'm willing to die to protect liberty and justice for you or me in America. Everybody dies.
I'd prefer an honorable death.

Answer 4

No. NO. Absolutely not. No way. No how.
I'm afraid that I wouldn't do anything differently if I did know anyone's "death" date, even (and possibly especially) my own!
I prefer to think that we're all going to live forever (and I don't mean this in some sort of religious sense).

Answer 5

I would want be able to have it all on file. So I can refer to it if I wanted to.

Answer 6

I'm sorry arismama, you seem to be full of it. Are you sure your source is not a lame Hallmark movie?

Answer 7

yes, but is it accurate and how does this work?

Answer 8

No, it's creepy.