life countdown

I am feeling a little thoughtful about life choices today.
We all live our lives and make so many decisions along the way. I wonder how much difference it would really make if we each had a death clock and knew the exact moment of our deaths?

You'd expect everyone to live their lives completely differently, to make the most of the time that they have. But I'm not so sure. Would the ideals of society change? Would most of us still grow up thinking that the logical progression in life is to get our qualifications, find a job, find a partner, get married and have kids? Would kids even be fashionable then? If we knew that we had 55 years to live, who on earth would want to spend 15 years of it studying, 30 years working and a good 18+ years of that trying to be a good parent? On the other hand, do the majority of people have the capacity to choose otherwise?

One thing is for sure, the world of insurance would be quite complicated. And there would also be a lot of depressed people out there. I think I'd train to be a psychiatrist :)

Me: "So, how do you feel today?"
Patient: "Pretty awful. I only have 45 years, 8 months, 4 days, 7 hours, 25 minutes and 32 seconds to live. And my wife totally wasted the weekend by forcing me to visit her parents. I lost two days of my life talking about potted plants!"
Me: "Well, what would you rather have spent your two days doing?"
Patient: "Um, well, I guess it would have been nice to do something a bit more worthwhile. New life experiences, that sort of thing."
Me: "How about bungee jumping? Or skydiving?"
Patient: "I'm afraid of heights."
Me: "Diving then?"
Patient: "I can't swim"
Me: "Learn to swim? It might save your life one day"
Patient: "What's the point? I know when I'm going to die. How is learning to swim going to help me?"
Me: "Er. Ok. How about volunteer work in Africa?"
Patient: "I already send them money."
Me: "That's not the point. You can enrich their lives."
Patient: "I only have 45 years to live. I should be enriching my own life."
Me: "Hmm. Well ok. How about trekking in Peru? Do the Inca trail."
Patient: "I'm scared of heights."
Me: "Go travelling for 6 months. Visit Australia, Asia, the Americas. Visit the low places."
Patient: "I'm scared of flying."
Me: "Why? You're not due to die for another 45 years yet...."

Hmmm. Just thought of another interesting slant. Old rich people would probably have a terrible time (or great, depending on your point of view) with young money whores who have somehow managed to find out their death days. Imagine the black market for bogus death clocks :)) The scope for exploitation would be massive!