Rich short life or a long poor one

It depends on how you look at the options. Rich, short life can mean a few things. Rich as in only having money, short as in die before 20, no, I wouldn't want that life. You wouldn't really have had even a chance to live. Rich in experiences, friends, family, maybe wealth and die at 30, yeah I might go for that. Depends on what "short" means.

Poor and old, maybe. Even if you are poor in wealth, you can still have a rich life with friends, family, memories.

Since I do believe there's a life after this one, and maybe we get chances to come back, I might choose the rich, short life if it was the second scenario from above.
 
I have never been rich, never poor, been badly bent a few times, but I have never been hungry and always had a place to sleep. I came from a meager background and never wished for more than I had. If offered now I would have to sleep on it, but a 90 foot yacht, fishing in the Caribbean for Blue Fin Sailfish would beat fishing in a pay pond for catfish sounds like a keeper.
 
hypochondriac said:
hope you werent offended.
in hindsight i think it comes from my own fear of dying poor.
thats a great word by the way. havent heard that used for a while.
"diabolical" thanks
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Oh no, no offense at all. Your question does force people to look inward, which is always a good thing if they are honest with themselves. Your question was broad enough that the boundaries could be set anyplace one wanted to. It is the way that people narrow down the question that makes their answers interesting.
 
A well lived, short life has always been my choice.
At age 65 and just having had an acute heart attack - I am still good with a short life and know I have lived well already. I've never been rich because I took time off work for 1 yr at a time, several times, to travel and enjoy life.
 
Problem is if you choose poor you're much more likely to die young than if you were well off. It's not really a realistic choice.

If living were a thing that money could buy,
You know the rich would live
And the poor would die,

 
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Olivia said:
Problem is if you choose poor you're much more likely to die young than if you were well off. It's not really a realistic choice.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi..._PDSLp5lNFmp39btJ6fvlaziIAlT5Kbq__csbVNINL0xg
Poorer Americans are much less likely to survive into their 70s and 80s than rich Americans, a stark life-expectancy divide compounded by the nation’s growing disparities in wealth, according to a federal report.

Over three-quarters of the richest 50-somethings in 1991 were still alive in 2014, the report found. But among the poorest 20 percent of that cohort, the survival rate was less than 50 percent, according to the analysis by the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional research agency.

The report finds that while average life expectancy increased over that period, it “has not increased uniformly across all income groups, and people who have lower incomes tend to have shorter lives than those with higher incomes.”

“Over time, the top fifth of the income distribution is really becoming a lot wealthier — and so much of the health and wealth gains in America are going toward the top,” said Harold Pollack, a health-care expert at the University of Chicago who was not involved in the creation of the report. “In these fundamental areas — life expectancy, health — there are these growing disparities that are really a failure of social policy.”
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