this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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Life past 60 seems has always been a very strange priority to sacrifice for to me, at least if you can only afford to either live today or subsist today and save for life past 60, which has basically become the choice for most here in the US as most wages don't allow for both, and many for either.
Let's assume you make it there having not gotten hit by a bus or killed by cancer or your healthcare insurance confidence scheme provider.
You've literally saved up so you could enjoy life when your senses are failing you, your mind is growing dull and confused, your own frail body is betraying you in new ways constantly, and your time is largely spent managing the ever growing list of symptoms building up to your impending death.
Sure there are exceptions, people who remain verile and sharp into their seventies, but they are not the rule. That's like planning your life around a future lottery win.
Live for today, especially if you're into your 30s or beyond. Better to have memories of living when you could in the shitty home with bad food then having memories of working and saving in the good home with the decent food your failing taste buds can't really even appreciate anymore.
Oh gee I hope I get to live long enough to piss myself involuntarily again! Maybe I'll finally take that cruise so I can soil myself in style and stay in my cabin because my body can't regulate it's own heat efficiently anymore!
The key is moderation between enjoying life today and saving for the future. What's your plan for the future if you do live to your 60s and 70s but your body fails you, you can't work, and don't have any money banked?
I have real life examples of this in my life and it is not pretty. Most state and federal programs won't help you until you're literally at rock bottom broke living alone and disabled in your home, which they will take from you after you die to recoup the money they're spending just to barely meet your basic necessities and maybe have a nurse come and check on you a few hours a week.
Exit, which is still preferable to what we do with most elderly in the states. I used to deliver to nursing homes for 10 years all day every day, educating patients on medical devices. I have seen and been informed first hand by too many to count, death is better. The happiest people in them have lost too many faculties to hold a conversation.
You don't want to live in even a "nice" home with any marbles still rolling around. The garbage to nice ratio is 10 to 1, and even most of the studious savers who didn't actually live don't get the nice ones with tapestries and French chefs, those are for the elder exploiters.
There are almost no happy people in those places, the best you see are some quivering brave faces that break 5 minutes into someone from the outside engaging with them. I came to think of them as living mausoleums as I went through their halls.
Yeah I didn't even refer to nursing homes in my comment because those aren't obtainable for people that didn't save up enough to spend $5k-$10k per month on them. I've also visited them and witnessed all the same things you mention. What I was referring to was living in your own house that you can barely still afford while being unable to really care for yourself.
To that I would say it's just inhuman that we largely insist suffering people continue until the body they're trapped in literally gives out. It's a sad, pathetic, demeaning way to go, regardless of whether you can also afford groceries and meds.
I think any adult should be able to have a painless opt out option with a 30 day waiting period. We treat people's lives as if they don't own them to do with what they will. I don't think it's right to encourage or insist people who are breaking down to cling to their misery when there are painless options we refuse to implement.
It's a bit of a bad joke really, we don't care enough about one another to support one another materially tragically, but we also don't want those people to offend the rules of our imaginary sky daddies. It's perverse. We literally have more compassion for our pets living in pain.
Assisted suicide is available in some areas. We've had it here in Oregon for a while. The scary part is when your mind goes, you can't partake in this process because they can't verify that it's what you really want because you're no longer of sound mind even though what's remaining into a husk of the person that used to occupy your body and your future will be full of confusion, isolation, and angry outbursts at everyone around you.