It’s Later Than You Think

The following chart gave me a shock.

It doesn’t look like much at first. But then I started thinking, and doodling, and checking off boxes. I encourage you to print this first blank chart, and do the same thing. Then my chart looked like this:

As I checked all these little boxes, several things stood out for me. First, I’ve already gone through more than 2/3 of my life. And that’s assuming that I live to age 90. Second, as I got tired while I checked each box, I realized that I’ve lived a long time, and done a lot of things. Each box in the chart represents a week — 7 days, 168 hours, 10,080 minutes, or 604,800 seconds. I’ve lived over 3,400 weeks. After a while, as I was X-ing out the boxes, I would think, “This was when I graduated,” or “This was when my son was born,” or “This was when I got married.” There were associations for each decade of my life. Then it really hit me: I don’t have a lot of time left. Even though my parents both lived into their 90s, I’ve never had the feeling that I would live that long. So I started to do some research.

Life Expectancy

It turns out that the calculation of a life expectancy is easy, but interpreting it can be complicated. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, the average lifespan in the U.S. is now 76.4 years. Wow. That’s a lot less than 90, and would significantly reduce the time I have left. But 76.4 is only an average. There are some of us who will live much longer than that, and some who haven’t even made it this far. So there is a big range around that average.

The data can be sliced and diced all different ways. For males, the average life expectancy is only 73.5 years. For females, 79.3 years. Then the statisticians really get excited. It turns out that if you make it to age 65, then your odds of living longer actually increase. This is just logical: everyone who died before age 65 would pull down the overall average, so if we only look at those who have lived to 65, the average life expectancy will be higher. If we start with only those who have reached age 65, the average life expectancy is 83.4, with males living to age 82 on average, and females living to age 84.7. Then there are all kinds of calculations based on the presence of a chronic disease, which cuts all the estimates down significantly.

Playing the Cards You’re Dealt

None of us know when we are going to die. I’ve always thought, though, that I had more time. This little exercise has me rethinking that.

There is a quirky movie called Nomadland, which has a scene in it that has haunted me. A character named Merle worked with her friend, Bill, who bought a sailboat and put it in his driveway. His plan was to sail in his retirement. But he got liver failure, and died before he could take the boat out of his driveway. Merle says, “He missed out on everything. And he told me before he died, ‘Just don’t waste any time, Merle. Don’t waste any time.’ So I retired as soon as I could. I didn’t want my sailboat to be in the driveway when I died.”

If you have something that you want to do, or if you want to tell someone that you love them, do it now. You don’t know how much time you have left.

This all has me thinking a lot. There are things that I want to do, but I also have responsibilities. Like Merle, I don’t want to waste the time I have left. What I want is to make the best decisions I can, and to show as much love as I can. I like the sentiments of the author of this poem:

I counted my years and found that I have less time to live from here on than I have lived up to now. 

I feel like that child who won a packet of sweets: he ate the first with pleasure, but when he realized that there were few left, he began to enjoy them intensely. 

I no longer have time for endless meetings where statutes, rules, procedures and internal regulations are discussed, knowing that nothing will be achieved. 

I no longer have time to support the absurd people who, despite their chronological age, haven't grown up. 

My time is too short: I want the essence, my soul is in a hurry. I don't have many sweets  in the package anymore.
 
I want to live next to human people, very human, who know how to laugh at their mistakes, and who are not inflated by their triumphs, and who take on their responsibilities. 

Thus human dignity is defended and we move towards truth and honesty. 

It is the essential that makes life worth living. 

I want to surround myself with people who know how to touch hearts, people who have been taught by the hard blows of life to grow with gentle touches of the soul. 

Yes, I'm in a hurry, I'm in a hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give. I don't intend to waste any of the leftover sweets. 
 
I am sure they will be delicious, much more than what I have eaten so far. 

My goal is to reach the end satisfied and at peace with my loved ones and my conscience. 

We have two lives.  And the second begins when you realize you only have one.