Is greater life expectancy always desirable? Essay

The quest for the elixir of liveliness has been notwithstandington on throughout history. In every civilisation, there are myths which depict heroes and heroines who snappy long broods, well-nigh even forever. there is too recorded history of men and women, called alchemists, who experimented to discover take to bes by which the great unwashed could live forever or at least for very long times. Modem medicament too aims to suck out lives often even of very sick persons with no hope of recovery from their ailments. In fact, one of the signs of a progressive nation is when its statistics coming into court that its populations has a high deportment anticipation that is that they chiffonier live agelong than their forefathers. The longer the life expectancy of a nation the better that nation. All these show that it is in the human consciousness to want to live for a long period of time. The question promptly is whether this is always desirable.Seen in the light of the i ndividual, longer life expectancy certainly seems desirable. Al close everyone would like to live and enjoy life longer. Humans pick out generally shown a reluctance to die and leave this beautiful earth and their loved ones. This is in the survival spirit with which every person seems to be born. Almost all of us want to prolong our lives and live as long as we can. However, there is a condition to this. We also want to live well. If we are in dire economic matters or incurably ill or in great suffering, we would not want to live too long, as doing so will prolong the difficulty and pain. If with greater life expectancy comes greater health, it would be a good thing. Suppose a person can be made healthy till the day he dies, then he will not be dependent on anyone and greater life expectancy would be most welcome.Usually, we say that life expectancy has increased, in a society, with reference to statistics. These are likely to be childly and just show that over a number of year s, people are now living longer. There is usually no reflection about the forest of life that has been lived by the people who now live longer. The statistics show an average without saying which of the people who have lived longer have lived disease-free lives and which have lived lives of comfort and happiness. It is executable that some of the people who have lived longer lives have actually lived miserably in retirement homes where the doctors have tried their best to make sure that the retireeslive as long as possible. If by longer life expectation we mean that people live longer, but with no improvement in the quality of their lives, then it would be much better if we do not have a longer life expectancy. In such cases, longer life expectancy would be undesirable. It would be better to live shorter but happier lives than have ones life prolonged, to suffer and die slow, lingering and painful deaths.Another musing about greater life expectancy is about the effect it would ha ve on society. Unless longer life expectancy also brings about with it greater health, there is going to be chaos. If people live longer, it could mean that it would take them longer to live out their old age. This means dependence on the jr. population. The younger and healthier generation, or indirectly the state, has to concur the older. In fact, there have been forecasts that as time goes on there will be more old people in proportion to the younger. If this is a consequence of greater life expectancy, it will place a strain on the younger people as they would have to look after their parents and grandparents while they themselves struggle to make a living.The final thing to give is whether there will be overpopulation if there is greater life expectancy. It is easy to see that the earths resources are not limitless. There may come a time when there are too many people in the world to be able to survive. On the other reach out we cannot rule out the possibility of earth colon ies on the moon and perhaps even other planets. This seems to be a possibility in a century.In conclusion, though it is apparent that greater life expectancy is a good thing, there are certain conditions that should go with it. The most important thing is the susceptibility of the people to live longer lives independently. There is also the consideration of the earth being able to support the larger number of people living on it.ReferencesCoale, A.J. 2003. Increases in expectation of life and population growth. cosmos and Development Review, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 113-20.Riley, J.C. 2001. Rising Life Expectancy A Global History. Cambridge Cambridge University Press..White, K.M. 2002. Longevity advances in high-income countries, 1955-96. nation and Development Review, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 59-76.Wilmoth, J.R. 1998. The future of human longevity A demographers perspective. Science, No. 280, pp. 395-97.