Topix Questions 21 "$10 Million or 5 Healthy Years Added to Your Life?" & 22 "Have You Ever Been a Hero? Has Anyone Saved You?"

 

Question 21/424:  You can have $10 million today, or 5 healthy years added to your life.  Which will you choose?

I watched Wishmaster growing up so I know how twisted the rule of “careful what you wish for” can be.  That being said, since I’m not actually talking to a genie (or Jinn) then I’m going to say I would choose the $10 million today.  

That might seem short-sighted, and maybe it is, but none of us know how long we’re going to live.  Asking for 5 healthy years added onto your life could mean you only get 5 more years period, or it could mean you live to 65 instead of 60, or it could mean you live to be 105 instead of 100.  If I could foresee my life span, then maybe I’d reconsider the extra 5 years, but I also don’t think I really care to live to be 100 years old.  I guess it would be cool to be featured on the news and to have lived through literally ten decades and to see how different things are, but at the same time, you have no idea what’s going to happen to you or how competent or able you are going to be past a certain age.  I honestly think living to be 80-ish is more than enough years on this planet.  Again, maybe hindsight is truly 20/20 and when I get older, I’ll wish for more and more years but as I sit here typing this at 30 years old, I’m thinking another 40-50 years is more than adequate for me.  Not to mention, I live in America meaning that having money almost guarantees you better healthcare meaning I could wind up having 5 extra healthy years simply by having the disposable income to spend on it.

Currently, having $10 million would literally change my life now and my future trajectory.  I would no longer be forced into the vicious cycle of paying rent to a landlord and instead could invest my money in a home or into stocks or into whatever other types of investments people throw their money into when they have extra money to throw around.  I could choose to retire, or at least choose to work a job that allowed me a lot more time to focus on joy, health, passions, and creativity.  I could get myself out of all the debt I got myself into when I was in my 20s and I could even put money towards helping other people.

I wish I could survey a ton of people on this question to see who would pick the 5 healthy years over the money.  Maybe it’s just because I am friends with people mostly in their late 20s or early 30s, but I feel like most people would just take the money and run because unfortunately, living in a capitalist society, money talks.  We all know that money doesn’t buy happiness, but money does buy pretty much everything else and ultimately happiness comes from feeling secure and safe.  Again, even as I type this and defend my choice, I am imagining some tricky genie laughing at me because I’ll get the $10 million and then die suddenly and not even be able to enjoy it.  But again, I am not actually asking a genie for this, so I think I’m safe on the karma / repercussion scale…

Of course, I know that money isn’t everything and that taking care of yourself both physically and mentally is the most important thing.  But as the internet memes have taught us, “I’ve got 99 problems and money would solve about 90 of them”.  Money offers opportunity, respect, freedom, and security which are all very far-fetched concepts to the people of my generation.  I even consider myself a person of some privilege when it comes to my job and my income, but I’d still be pretty happy to be able to have $10 million magically appear in my bank account overnight.  I’d probably keep working my current job, but I’d definitely take more time off and experience life and travel and work towards bigger goals than I have currently.  A lot more of my goals would become instantly more feasible with that amount of money at my disposal.  So, yeah, if forced to choose and without being able to know my current anticipated lifespan, I’d choose the $10 million.

 

Question 22/424:  Have you ever been a hero, saving someone from injury or death?  Has anyone saved you?

I have not been a hero or saved someone from injury or death.  I’ve attempted to help in a situation, but I would not take credit for being the person that saved anyone.  I’ve never specifically been in a situation where someone had to save me from death, but I have certainly had a few close calls.

The most poignant example or memory that I have of a near-death experience would be 4th of July weekend many years ago (if I had to throw a year out, I’d guess 2016).  My best friend had a tradition of going to the local lake in the town where we grew up because they have an annual fireworks show, the whole town comes together to cook hotdogs and hamburgers, have live bands play outside, and you can swim in the lake for free.  It’s about as close to Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls as I’ve ever gotten.  Well, her boyfriend and a few of us friends all got together to go to the lake.  My best friend’s boyfriend kept saying how he wouldn’t go in the deep water because he wasn’t a very strong swimmer.  My sister-in-law and I kind of laughed and said, “Yeah, we’re not very strong swimmers either so don’t worry.”  But he kept insisting that he would not being going out to the buoys which were in the deeper water.  My best friend was disappointed and kept insisting that between the four of us girls we could get him out there safely and he could sit on the rope connecting the buoys while we watched the fireworks.  They shoot the fireworks off from a boat in the water so sitting on the buoys means being closer to the source and it was just what we did every year.  We went back and forth on the subject for the 30-ish minute car ride and finally we were at the lake.  My best friend’s boyfriend was still nervous about the water situation, but my sister-in-law and I devised a plan that we thought was foolproof.  The boyfriend would float on his back and the four of us girls would just pull him out to the buoys where he could confidently grab onto them and not have to worry about swimming or even keeping his head above water because the rope would do that job for him.  He was still nervous, but we insisted that it would work and even if he got nervous, he at least knew how to doggy-paddle which is about all I know how to do as well.  So, the boyfriend gets on his back in the water, and we start swimming out to the buoys with him in tow, but about halfway there, he either looked down into the deep water or just realized that he was in the deep water and went into full panic mode.  The four of us were trying to get him to calm down or at least get back to his floating position so we could get him back to the shallow water (it is not a very long swim) but he was in full flight mode.  His eyes were wider than I’ve ever seen eyes and he was essentially trying to climb on top of us to get out of the water – which of course wasn’t working.  The four of us essentially had to take turns being dunked under the water while the other three caught their breath but there was no reasoning with him in this panicked state.  Eventually my best friend swam away to try and get help and my sister-in-law kept screaming at the crowd to come and help us while I and another of our friends kept taking turns being dunked into the water or catching our breath.  Eventually one of the guys on shore realized that we weren’t playing some game or anything and that someone was in trouble and dove into the water to come and help us.  At the time my sister-in-law had taken her turn as the person being dunked in the water by the boyfriend who was trying to save himself from drowning.  Unfortunately, the rescuer misinterpreted the situation and grabbed my sister-in-law up out of the water (ironically, she was the strongest swimmer of the 5 of us).  So, she starts screaming, “No, not me! Help them! Help them! I’m good! Put me down!” But the rescuer either didn’t hear her or didn’t believe her until he got her to the shallow water.  Once he did realize his mistake he immediately came back and grabbed the boyfriend out of the water and returned him to the shallow end. 

I would say that situation is about the closest I’ve came to being saved from impending injury or death.  I’ve survived a couple of nasty car accidents but those were mostly dumb luck more than someone coming to my rescue.