What's your evidence for this? In my experience, losing both my parents and all grandparents, everyone was ready to go long before they did. My dad passed away comfortably in his sleep in reasonable health (for 84 year old) and he'd been talking about being ready for months. My grandmother told us she wished she was dead like all her friends for a decade before she passed away (she was late 90s). My mother had cancer and chose to go at her own time like one of the comments above about MAID.

Similar here. My grandfather told me he prayed for death to come a few months before actually dying.

So it does depend on the individual and their specific circumstances.

I agree, very much depends on the individual. Currently witnessing a 94-year-old who can no longer get out of bed who absolutely does not want to die. Otherwise, I'm convinced it would have happened by now. I'm not surprised though, it's her personality.

It's definitely a lot of things, like religious beliefs, personality, fear, guilt. And I think our society is absolutely terrified of death. A rational person might reason, "Well, I'm only a burden now, I'm not going to get any more enjoyment out of life, and I'm going to die soon anyway. This is a perfect time to end my life." But we aren't taught to think like that.

We're taught that death is the worst thing that can happen to you, that when you die you might go to a place full of fire and burning and torture forever, that trying to extend your life (exercise, nutrition, psychology, cosmetics, etc) is the ultimate goal. We are not taught to get the most out of life when we're young, we're not taught the practical skills that would give us more contentment through life, and we're not taught that death is a natural and normal part of life.

We need a class in school called "don't fear, just plan: organize your way to a happy life and be fine with dying sooner." Teach people how to stop sitting around wondering how to be happy, and just give simple practical skills and workbooks. Things like "how to pick your career", "how to choose where to live", "how to actually manage your finances", "how to make friends", "how to get a significant other", "how to manage your emotions", "how to deal with conflict", "how to deal with a life change", "how to enjoy life for free", "how to balance work and life", etc. There are answers to all these things, but they aren't taught in school; we're just expected to bump into them somewhere in life, after decades of grasping around pretending like we know what we're doing. We waste so much of life because nobody has taught us what to do.

By the time you're 60, you should have already had a vivid, exciting life full of friends and opportunities and special moments. But many of us haven't! I put it down to simply not learning how. If we expect every kid to learn completely useless shit like Calculus, we should definitely teach them the more important life skills sooner.

I'm not sure that anecdotal evidence should really be at play here. For instance, the only person that I personally knew who paid a Dignitas subscription chose not to go through with it, but that doesn't demonstrate anything about the population at large.

Terry Pratchett, after being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, made a documentary called Choosing To Die, which you might be interested in. He had stated that he wished to die by assisted suicide, but ultimately Terry died at home from Alzheimer's.

Given the choice between living and dying I believe a vast majority of people choose living.

That being said I think assisted suicide should be an option and everyone should have this option.

You're forgetting there's still a huge percentage of people that think suicide is immoral and won't do it.

I think _some_ people will want to continue to live, and some will not. Making confident assertions about someone else's future preferences seems fundamentally unreasonable.

I recall my grandmother in the hospital with pancreatitis, in serious pain, saying she was ready to die, but her doctors reassuring everyone that actually her situation probably wasn't life threatening. She was in her 90s already. She had outlived her husband by decades by that point. She had outlived multiple batches of friends at her retirement community. She did live for a few years after that incident, but I understand why she was ready to accept death.

Why is it unreasonable? Biologically we're hardwired to want to live.

When my grandmother got cancer the 2nd time, she decided that she did not want to suffer treatment to eek out a few more months or years. She lived at home until she died.

When she could no longer care for herself, a hospice nurse came twice a day. When the end was close, family moved into the house, and children were taken out of school. She pass in the comfort of a familiar setting surrounded by loved ones, and everyone witnessed her last breath and death rattle.

It was a very wholesome experience and how I would want to go.

Not sure about that.

This is under-reported but there is a very high number of suicide in this age category.

I don't think the desire to live vanishes, but some of us are simply not willing to live miserably for months or years.

At some point it is clear that there is no turning back, being stuck in bed for a few days or weeks can be acceptable, but not if there is zero hope of regaining autonomy.

Also, I am not found of the business side of this, I think this is extorsion, preying on the weak.

Yes. It's the pain and the suffering that makes people maybe want to let go. But that does not equal wanting to die.

> No matter what you think now, you will still want to live when death is near.

Not true.

My father wanted to die for the last 6 years of his life.

He would talk about it and obsess about his death in eager anticipation.

His last words that followed by three days of not eating or drinking were "Can't this go any faster?"

Just not wanting to live, and not being depressed about it, made transition easier for me personally.

He was never in pain during this time, so I didn't feel compelled to help him die.

It’s how you think.

People plan and choose to exit early all the time. Some people don’t want to live, even when death is nowhere near, but stick around because they don’t want to devastate their family.

Honestly, you sound like someone who likes to pretend to have insight into the human mind, but you can’t be bothered to actually invest the time listening to people you don’t understand.

I wouldn’t generalize here.

I've known dying folks that still feel as the above describes. I'm sure there are also lots that change their mind.