Endings

At age 90, Daniel Kahneman – maybe the most famous modern intellectual on the subject of decision making – decided to end his life.

Kahneman traveled to Switzerland with his companion to legally pursue assisted suicide. He was neither physically nor mentally compromised, just numerically aged to a number that automatically instills a sense of finality.

Ending things before life became a series of maintenance acts was his priority.

Kahneman had told only a handful of people about his decision. They reacted the way you would expect; some questioned the timing, noting there was still time and ability to enjoy life. His experiences with decline were not encouraging, seeing as both his mother and wife had bad endings – cognition failures that hit him hard.

This was a thought experiment leading to only one conclusion.

Kahneman wrote a book called “Thinking Fast and Slow.” Grounded in behavioral economics, the ideas he posited touched on the two major types of decision making. The first was automatic thinking – a quick reaction with little effort, relying on intuition and emotion. The second type was slower, more deliberate and analytical, requiring conscious effort and logical reasoning.

Kahneman showed how people’s decision-making abilities did not usually adhere to logical, sound, and consistent principles. Automatic thinking dominates. We tend to overestimate our abilities or hold on to biases that lead to bad decisions. This overconfidence affects our personal and work lives to the extent that it exacerbates unhappiness. Kahneman instructed his readers to utilize a slower thinking process for more complex situations to achieve better results.

Planning for wealth transfer, long-term care, and end-of-life should be brought about using the slower thinking method. A deliberative approach punctuated by family conversations and professional advisor oversight is the right way to handle these decisions.

Some basic truths have emerged over the decades.

Do not leave a mess for your family. Simple transfers of funds and property, avoiding court involvement, is preferable. Trusts, wills, advance directives, financial records, deeds, stocks and bonds should be easily accessible. Online account usernames and passwords should be securely stored but also obtainable by your trusted people. Early transfers to trusts for Medicaid planning avoid penalties and emergency actions.

End-of-life concerns mix the practical with the philosophical. Engineering a plan for your personal effects and belongings is extremely important. Whether items are gifted to family, donated, sold, auctioned or thrown away, try to make some headway before time gets away.

Tasking your adult children with a massive clean-up effort is to be avoided at all cost.

I once had a belief that my memories of the repeated hospitalizations and final bed-ridden days of my parents would drift away after they were gone – leaving only vivid images of their healthy selves. That did not happen.

Kahneman was still very much among the living when he died. He was himself and his closest people could still recognize that man in the days before and the days after his death.

To be recognizable as yourself for your entire life is a gift. Not every departure is as smooth. Balancing the idea of remaining in the world with some possibility of enjoyment and satisfaction with the reality of requiring total care is our toughest challenge.

Alan D. Feller, Esq., is managing partner of The Feller Group, located at 572 Route 6, Suite 103, Mahopac. He can be reached at alandfeller@thefellergroup.com.