What scares you ?

Governments, Society, growing old. The general level of stupidity among the common man and their willingness to be dragged along by groupthink.

Why are you scared by growing old? You’re not alone - I saw something on yahoo yesterday saying that the proportion of people afraid of growing old is increasing.

Why are you scared by growing old? You’re not alone - I saw something on yahoo yesterday saying that the proportion of people afraid of growing old is increasing.

Well they developed as I was approaching 30 so it feels like aging to me. I before 28 I just didn’t even need glasses. Ageing is a process, it doesn’t only apply to things that happen after you’re 60.

I've had those 3 things (on top of all the rest) for decades too.

Ageing is only a factor with respect to eye problems.

My stepson has your eye condition. His mum is discovering there is very little resolution available apart from getting ripped off by the optician with a new perscription every 6 months for his astigmatism

I'm a long way from my pension but I still have irregular astigmatism that glasses can't fully correct, floaters and dry eye all of which I'm told are 'incurable' and must merely be managed. When I was a teenager my eyesight was perfect and I didn't need glasses.

Taltunes said:

She actually has more than enough morphine in her flat to do the job

There are far worse ways to go than by a morphine overdose.

My sister was on intravenous morphine when she died so we know she was in a peaceful place.

It's a drug I think of as being kind.

So sorry about your mum.

My mum would certainly take a pill if she was given one. She actually has more than enough morphine in her flat to do the job but my sister and I aren’t about to tell her that.

Taltunes said:

Yes, and no.

Yes and yes, I think, as life for the elderly is really nothing like it was during Biblical times which was the point I was making.

For example, Solomon talks of 'your eyes will be too dim to see clearly' but I've had the benefit of glasses, contact lenses, cataract surgery, other eye surgery and am at present having eye injections for wet macular degeneration.

Solomon didn't have that available.

However, yes, there is still suffering and deterioration but there is at any age.

As I said above, I've lost 3 people close to me in their 50s.

Death and deterioration can haunt us at any age.

I'm sorry about your mum, and I do feel that euthenasia by choice should be allowed (but, my goodness, that's a contentious subject).

Yes, and no. Most pensioners enjoy good health in the early years of their retirement but a lot of pensioners then have to endure years of poor health before they die.

My mum is 92 and has a form of cancer amongst other health conditions. She has got to the stage where she has had enough but is basically being kept alive by modern medicine.

Peter said:

Solomon puts it this way. 

That was (purportedly) in approximately 970–931 BCE.

Medicine has moved on rather a lot since then, along with life expectancy and quality of life in old age.

Solomon puts it this way. 

“So remember your Creator while you are still young, before those dismal days and years come when you will say, “I don’t enjoy life.” That is when the light of the sun, the moon, and the stars will grow dim for you, and the rain clouds will never pass away. Then your arms, that have protected you, will tremble, and your legs, now strong, will grow weak. Your teeth will be too few to chew your food, and your eyes too dim to see clearly. Your ears will be deaf to the noise of the street. You will barely be able to hear the mill as it grinds or music as it plays, but even the song of a bird will wake you from sleep. You will be afraid of high places, and walking will be dangerous. Your hair will turn white; you will hardly be able to drag yourself along, and all desire will be gone.”

should be. but yeah its at age 70 that my gen can claim it.

if it goes up anymore it will be pointless and none existant.... it will go up more, as thats progress, things go up, they never come down, like food prices. even when the situation is reversed they never put prices back down.

 Assuming of course there still is a state pension

I hear you.  I know that I would like to chose "early" given some reasonably foreseeable scenarios and assistance is unlikely to be available to anyone for quite some time.

But like I said earlier, hope springs eternal and so I like to hope (and have witnessed in the past) the power of a DNR coupled with fate (or similar word of your choosing.)

With respect.

Number.

i dunno... a big positive difference would be to cut the other stuff and increase what goes to the pension, so that we can instead lower the pension age to a more appropriate retirement age such as 50... or 55 or something... so that people can actually retire and not have to be forced to work ever second of their lives and not really get to enjoy their lives or have freedom.

economically speaking it isnt a issue to do this because there is 1000 applicants per job now. we need to cut the people seeking work as there isnt enough jobs to go around anyway. so lowering the age of retirement and taking out a load of workers into state pension would ease the job pressures on younger people who need to earn a living and make their lives and raise a deposit on a home and so on. which is also another reason why pro migration people lie, they lie claim we need all this influx of migrant workers, we really dont, we have 1000 people applying for a single job now. we need less workers, less people.... or, more jobs, millions more jobs... but its harder to make more jobs than it is to control the amount of workers seeking work here.

Then everybody wins! 100% of my state pension can go to an area where it's actually going to make a big positive difference. 

I would be less scared if that were the case, but in reality I'm unlikely to have access to assisted dying when I reach the point where I want out, and by that point suicide might no longer be something a person is able to carry out. 

It feels like I'm being pushed towards a crowded party and they'll lock the doors behind me when I'm forced in. 

ahh.... i checked my pension age for when i can claim and for people born in the 90s our pension age when we can claim state pension will be when we are 70 years old. so your age of euthanasia is the governments age where they will allow us to gain state pension in the future.

T said:

if I could sign a paper to be euthanised when I hit 70, I'd do it now. 

That's 9 years more of my life and 5 more of my husband's.

We are both physically active, creative people with lively minds still.

I've also watched people grow old and decline.

My dad died at 74 but up until then he was fit and active.

My mum died at 86 (I think) and she had declined physically and mentally.

However, my sister and brother-in-law and an ex-boyfriend didn't reach my age, and that's tragic.

I think that making the death decision when and if you get to the point you no longer want to live makes sense, if it's legal in this country by then.

What's not to be scared about? Losing the full use of your body and potentially your mind, your world rapidly shrinking, the sudden ramping up of physical suffering with the knowledge that you will never fully recover again, more and more of the people you've known disappearing every year...

I saw my grandparents' old age and if I could sign a paper to be euthanised when I hit 70, I'd do it now.