Life Insurance

It's that time of year again: time for annual insurance enrollment, where the powers that be decide that you can change how your insurance plans are setup. It's also where if you decide you want to keep what you have, but don't do anything, they automatically give you the top tier plan. It happened to me. I don't understand it.

Anyway, in the course of looking over the options, I ran across something I've seen on there every year since I started: the life insurance. I've never taken it. You know, when you buy something, you get it with the express purpose of using it or expecting to use it at some point. It's there if you need it, but the point is that you're the end user of the product. Life insurance doesn't work that way. It's a monetary value of what your life is worth to everyone around you, so that if you happen to lose it for whatever reason, they can have some solace in the idea that they are very well paid in your sudden absence (and can pay for the funeral and plot of ground that will house your mortal remains).

I stared at the options for a very long time, and so far, I've not brought myself to make a choice. This is my sixth time to have said choice at my present employer, and I just can't. To make matters worse, there are separate options for you and your spouse. This means that you can choose yourself or your significant other but you don't have to pick both if you don't want to. That sort of choice makes you face the fact that your life has a limit to it. We don't like to think about that, but at some point somewhere down the road, it's going to end.

I want to pretend I'm different. I've bared aged in awhile, but pondering this makes me admit that it'll happen. I still act and feel quite young, and to be honest, I act younger than most people my age. They and those even younger complain about all kinds of "old people" stuff, but not me. No, I will live until Jesus comes.

Part of me feels like if I decide to make the election for either myself or the Queen, it's like an invitation for the end. If I choose only me, that feels responsible. If I choose only her, that makes me feel like I'm asking for her to pop off (which makes me a bit of a jerk, if you're keeping score). If I go with both, I wonder about the children since that sort of preps us both for the long sleep.

It's a question for which there is no scientific answer, and one that theology can't agree upon. What does happen? Christianity mostly says if you're good (and follow Jesus), you go straight to heaven, while if you're anything else, you're in eternal damnation. Others say it's a sleep, of sorts, until God's return when you're risen to be judged, and either insert prior heaven and hell notions or the good join him, while the not-so-good return to the ground for eternal death. Some believe in ghosts being spirits of the dearly departed trapped on our plane instead of wherever, and others believe in reincarnation where you just keep coming back. But the non-religious types would just say once you're dead, you're dead.

As for me, I keep an open mind. I believe in God and Jesus, and know that there is a place prepared for the great beyond, but I can't really quantify it. The promise of eternal life is there, and I do believe that, but it remains an unknown, and I feel like there is more to do here. The Parable of the Ten Talents always weighs upon me, and I don't want to be the guy caught having squandered his life.

What will I do about my insurance quandry? Well, I'm not really superstitious, but I don't know. I still feel like electing something is just asking for trouble. Yet, responsibility would say that not electing is reckless. And so the debate will ever rage inside my head.