[A thought experiment] Who are you gonna leave your family with?

There is a very interesting thought experiment in Tim Ferriss’s podcast episode with Todd McFarlane, where Todd suggests people to imagine that one day there’s something wrong with your body. You go to check with the doctor, and he says that you have an inoperable cancer, that there’s nothing modern medicine can do, and you will be dead in 3 weeks. Now, instead of asking you to think about how you’re gonna spend that 3 weeks (as in a more common version that I guess we all have heard of), he asks us to think about our family, or the person(s) we love the most, that they’ll have to live without us in 3 weeks’ time.

And the question he asks is: “So who is the person you gonna leave them with? Who would you ask to help to take care of the persons you love most in the world?”

He gives us 2 options: (1) the richest, and (2) the kindest. I guess it’s true to say that no one is gonna choose the richest, and 100% of our votes will go for the kindest.

But, it seems true to say that in this modern busy world, we often dedicate all our time, effort, and energy to becoming richer, more materialistic, and after work we’re just exhausted that there’s nothing left in us to do anything for anyone. In other words, kindness seems to be suppressed easily by the pressure to be financially safe in this modern world.

I guess it’s truly something to think about.

But, back to the thought experiment itself, what do you think? Do you have someone, a true friend, to ask for that favour in the case you’ll be gone soon?

As I’ve written in another post, the true friendship seems to be extremely rare nowadays. And I need to admit that in my case, it’s hard to think of someone I can ask for that favour if that situation happens.

To be honest, it’s quite sad to know. But, on the other hand, I guess it’s good to be aware of that, and I hope I (or we, if you’re like me) still have time to make some changes.

This reminds me also of the ending of one of the best classic books - “Gone with the wind”, when Melanie is about to die, and she asks Scarlett for exactly that favour – to take care of her son and her husband. And the main reason Scarlett would never be able to refuse her friend's request is because Melanie has always been there for her.

And I believe that the only way we can make that preparation in case anything happens, that is:

We should live as a person that someone else can ask for that favour when they die.