A Tantalizing Question

DON'T FORGET TO VOTE TOMORROW!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Here's a question for you. A tantalizing one. And your first answer might change.

On some random #HankonTour television, I saw a fragment of a show where panelists were talking about how there was a new medical test that would calculate how long you would live. They do nine separate tests, and then it gives the estimate of how many more years you have left  to live.

I keep thinking about this. 

They asked: if you could know, would you want to know? My first answer was no. Then yes. Then I started analyzing, over-analyzing, you know me, and thinking well, there are so many possibilities of what might happen that how could anyone know anything and so, all in all that is really silly.

On the other hand (you know me) if the doctor said whoa, your cholesterol (or whatever ) is what's hurting this number. If you change this, and take the test again next year, your "years-left" number could change. 

Is it more...persuasive if there's a number?  They revealed someone's results on the show--to a person who didn't know them--and she was 40 or so, and was told her life span would be 42 years longer. Her face--I wish you could have seen it. Well, actually, I don't.

I almost decided this was too morbid to discuss. Is it? Or what do you think?  Or is this not only realistically impossible but medically impossible? 

RHYS BOWEN: I'd absolutely want to know. If they said two years then I would say all the things I'd meant to say, make all the time for friends I'd meant to make, travel to all the places I wanted to see, not worry about spending big bucks on a meal or a necklace.

 I'd stop to gaze at sunsets, watch the waves, listen to music. . Essentially live knowing that my days were numbered. But there are so many variables, aren't there? I was in a major car accident the other day. Hit from behind. Knocked into oncoming traffic. You can do everything right and then fate intervenes. So who can actually tell how long they have? I think the answer is to make the most of every day.

HANK: Rhys! SO scary. And we are...so happy you are okay. There are no words for how happy.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING; No, no, no. Far better to live as if any day (or week, or month) might be your last. How do you do that? Keep in touch with your loved ones. Be kind as frequently as possible. Do your work well, with pride. I can tell you from my experience, when the end is in sight, people who have lived well don't spend time regretting they never made it to that bucket-list cruise or concert or ball game. Because they remember the cruises and concerts and ball games they DID get to. 

Scripture says, "No man knows the day or hour..." That seems about right to me.

JENN McKINLAY: I don't want to know just like I didn't want to know if my babies were boys or girls or had three heads or not. (Spoiler alert: I had boys. One head apiece).

I like surprises, yes, even the bad ones. I like mystery, yes, even the unsolvable. And I like living every day as if it's my last, precisely because I don't know if it is or not. What is that George Strait song? "Life's not the breaths you take. But the moments that take your breath away." I'm good with that.

LUCY BURDETTE: I have to say that this question gives me the shivers! I’m not entirely sure that if I learned my time was very short that I wouldn’t retreat into a quivering blob. On the other hand, Rhys and Jenn make excellent points. Shouldn't we be living as though our time was short anyway because who knows? And, to Hanks point about how knowing might help make lifestyle changes, isn’t that what a physical is for? My intention is to try to live as though I have A lot of time left, while straddling the line of seizing every moment just in case. Because really, I think that’s the best we can do anyway. And make sure we read enough and talk enough and do enough good along the way...

INGRID THOFT:  This is the second time this year I’ve contemplated this question.  The first was at a book event celebrating “The Immortalists” by Chloe Benjamin, a terrific book in which four siblings learn the date of their deaths when they are still children and the effect it has on their lives.  My answer then, and now, is hell no!  I try to live knowing that there are no promises in terms of life span, so go for it:  write that book, say you’re sorry, take that trip.  But you also can’t live your life dreading the end, and I’m afraid an end date would color my remaining days.  As Muhammad Ali said, “Don’t count the days…make the days count.

HALLIE EPHRON: What an interesting question. Thinking... I would want to know if I had a limited time left, like a year or two. Or maybe not – because then it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So don’t tell me. Please. Or do. Or...

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My related question: what if you knew for sure that you were coming back after. Would that make a difference in how you lived your last years?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I absolutely would NOT want to know. I can't even contemplate what it would like to have that hanging over me, whether it was two years or thirty. And even if it was medically possible to be that accurate, that doesn't mean you might not get hit by a bus tomorrow. But thinking about this is a good reminder that we should make the most of every day, appreciate our lives, be the best people we can be, do some good in the world. (Ingrid, that book sounds creepily fascinating.)

HANK: So, see? It's a very unsettling question--and yes, of course, it underscores the need for us all to live in the present, be grateful, notice the world and be kind.  To accept the mystery of life.  

And, possibly,  to eat the French fries. 

But that aside, Reds and readers, would you want to know? Or what do you even think about that question? Or about being given that option? Let us know.