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Importance of Talking about your Life Wishes

Death is as natural as breathing but no one really wants to talk about it or acknowledge that it exists. However, when you are growing older, your mortality starts rearing its head your way and you find yourself more and more thinking about the future and your plans in preparing for that eventual death.

Avoidance will not prepare you or loved ones for your death. Some people believe that talking about death is opening them up to pain and suffering. It is actually quite the opposite. By expressing your life wishes to loved ones, you are preparing them for the time something happens to you. Sharing what you want will help them make the right decisions for you.

Importance of Relaying your Wishes

Many people profess to want to die in their sleep, peacefully in the night. However, the reality is that you are likely going to die of old age or disease and it will take quite a while to die. This decline of health toward death is the reason why you should take about your life wishes with loved ones far in advance. Without giving them ideas of what you want, you are opening them up to the worst kind of grief and pain - the indecision of what to do with and for you.

If you have specific ideas that you want implemented, you must talk about them to loved ones. Face those scary demons and lay it all out in regards to what you want. You will find that you will breathe easier knowing that your wishes will be met and your family will feel relief in not having to make any difficult decisions like life support because you will have already done it.

Of course, creating your end of life plan can be hard because there are so many gray areas. Do you not want to be resuscitated but will accept a ventilator and/or feeding tube? What about organ donation? Do you want to consider hospice or palliative care? Do you have an assisted living facility picked out when the time comes that you cannot take adequate care of yourself?

All of these questions and more should be at the forefront when talking to loved ones about your life wishes. End of life treatment options should be drafted out and amended as you age and circumstances change. As medical technology progresses, what you dictated five years ago may not be applicable today in light of new treatment options and technology availability.

Beginning the Process of Relaying your Life Wishes

Search yourself for the most important answers to sustaining your life should you end up in the hospital. Put these thoughts and feelings to paper and allow you time to fully absorb them. Then, discuss them with a trust family member and/or friend. Once you have talked it over with someone you trust, then you have to take it to the next level in the form of a living will, advanced directive or even a durable power of attorney.

Make sure that several loved ones know your life wishes as well as where you file the paperwork. Relay them to your doctors as well. Be sure that you cover everything from health care to estate planning to what you want for your funeral too. All of these things are important and should be relayed to loved ones so that your life wishes are carried out with dignity.