Probability of death: 100%

Lifetime odds of dying from:
Any accident: 1 in 36
A motor vehicle accident: 1 in 81
A firearm: 1 in 202
Poisoning: 1 in 344
A falling object (terrestrial): 1 in 4,873
Drowning in a bathtub: 1 in 10,455
Being caught in or between objects: 1 in 29,860
Suffocation by a plastic bag: 1 in 130,498
Lightning: 1 in 2,320,000

Some years ago, a committee of specialists produced a report for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; It's called the Rasmussen Report. The Rasmussen Report is at its core a compilation of probability statistics. The Rasmussen Report is, by definition, a incredibly boring piece of work. And yet, I can't help but think I'd want to read it. Why? Because the bottom-line subject of the Rasmussen Report is death; Yours, mine and everyone else's.

The Rasmussen Report is basically a compilation of probability statistics of dying in different ways. The probability of being killed in a truly shocking variety of mishaps, in fact. Want to know how probable it is you won't survive a flight? Or how likely it is you'll be killed by lightning? Read the Rasmussen Report.

Shockingly enough, just skimming through some of the summaries and statistics, I find that the Rasmussen Report is a surprisingly uplifting one, whether its authors meant it or not (No, they certainly didn't). It tells you in a precise and tidy format that in everything you do, there's some risk involved. However, it also tells us that the things that our society worries about most are some of the least likely things to happen. We spend such a great deal of our time giving ourselves stomach ulcers, hypertension and heart attacks worrying about getting killed in a plane crash (odds: 1 in three million) when the real killers out there are.. well, stomach ulcers, hypertension and heart attacks.

Despite what anti-smoking campaigners would have you believe, there is no such thing as "preventable death". Sooner or later, everyone is going to die (the only question is how peaceful or painful). Just ask your doctor. So that's exactly why the message of the Rasmussen Report is an optimistic one. The sooner we realize that we're all going to die, the sooner we stop worrying about it so much and start enjoying the ride.

Why quality of life as opposed to mere quantity of years? They say Methuselah lived to be almost nine and a half centuries old. Well, I'll bet the last 800 years weren't too exciting. Alexander the Great, on the other hand, was thirty-three at the time of his death and had conquered almost the whole of the known world by then. Dying was probably the only thing left to do.

I could decide to live the rest of my life within my own home, eating only home-grown produce and having to wear a jumpsuit to do the gardening because of the ultraviolet rays. I'd probably live a healthy 90 years or so.

Or I could go do ride some rollercoasters and do some bungee jumping. In a thunderstorm.