When it comes right down to it...

[Jessica Jade]

There are pros and cons to both. Elves are immortal, and their memory lasts for ages,but men grow old and die, and lessons they learn are quickly forgotten. However, The Gift (or Doom) of Men allows them to die and to be free from the circles of the world, whereas elves are forever bound to Arda.

Quote from ch. 1 of Quenta Silmarillion:

It is with this gift of freedom that the children of Men dwell only a short space in the world alive, and are not bound to it, and depart soon whither the elves know not. Whereas the Elves remain until the end of days, and their love of the Earth and all the world is more single and more poignant therefore, and as the years lengthen ever more sorrowful. ... But the sons of Men die indeed, and leave the world...death is their fate, the gift of Iluvatar, which as Time wears even the Powers shall envy.

Before i read the Sil i had thought that Elves are what Man would have been like if not for the fall of Adam and Eve, but in LOTR, it was all from the perspective of men, hobbits, dwarves...to them, elves seemed Magical because they (hobbits, men, etc) knew so little about the elves. Now i think i'd still rather be human. Although i'd like to dwell in the bliss of Valinor or Tol Erresea, i'd probably wnat to be free from the circles of the world one day rather than be bound to it forever.