The fuse is burning
The title may sound ominous. Don’t worry. Everything is fine. But, I learned that I’ve got about 651 weeks to live (if I’m lucky). From this point forward, my fingers are crossed. 😉
I’ve been listening to / reading Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. He begins the book by slapping readers in their literary faces.
Let’s do some quick math, he suggests. Assume we get lucky and live a good, long life: eighty years. Roughly, that means you live 4,000 weeks (technically, 80 years * 52 weeks per year = 4,160 weeks: at that number, who’s quibbling).
So, off I go to calculate how near I am to dying. If you feel brave, you can go here to do the same thing. Last night, I’d been alive 24,568 days.
You know how it suddenly gets dark when a storm is coming in? That’s what I felt as I continued on this morbid trail.
More math…
24,568 days alive / 7 days in a week = 3,509.71
I’m alloted 4,000 weeks for a good long life. I’m currently residing at 3,509. If I’m lucky I have another 651 weeks to live.
Burkeman continues to drive the nail in my coffin (I hope I don’t meet this guy in a quiet alley), by pointing out that when you get where I’m at, the perception of time passes much more quickly. So, how do I want to live that time?
It’s probably time to draw up a list and get serious about:
- Things that bring me joy (not the hedonistic things I buy but am weary of two weeks later)
- What relational thorns do I continue to carry? What thorns have I inflicted? I know there’s some. I don’t know what to do with them.
- How much I can realistically do (for someone who finds almost anything interesting and believes he can do it all, this is a hard, hard task)
- It means being kindly ruthless (I’m still working out how that works but it sounded cool). I feel certain there isn’t a class or technology or book or blah, blah, blah that isn’t interesting and worth -> twittering <- (see what I did there??) my time away on.
I see some essential changes coming up.
First thing tomorrow morning. 😄
Seriously. My fuse is burning. So is yours.