“The trouble is, you think you have time.”
Jack Kornfield, in Buddha’s Little Instruction Book.
I have found that I can better feel my remaining time on Earth by calculating it in terms of months rather than the years. That number is easy to calculate. Merely consult a mortality calculator such as this one. And then, once you see that number, you might ask yourself whether that number is a threat or whether it is a challenge and an opportunity. My age is 64, which means that I have roughly 18.6 more years before I die. Multiplying by 12, I can see that I have only 223 months remaining and I don’t know whether I will be in good health for most of those months. I don’t know whether those will be months that streak by or whether they will be slowly-passing months like the ones many of us are experiencing during COVID.
When a friend of mine was 30, he told me that he had been accepted to a medical school, but was having second thoughts. He decided to talk with the school counselor, saying: “If I proceed, it will involve 4 years of medical school, one year of internship and 3 years of residency. By the time I am a doctor, I’ll be 38 years old!” The counselor replied, “How old will you be in 8 years if you don’t go to medical school?”
“The fool, with all his other faults, has this also, he is always getting ready to live.”
Seneca
“You are living as if destined to live forever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don’t notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply — though all the while that very day which you are devoting to somebody or something may be your last. You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.”
Seneca. On The Shortness of Life
How often do you sternly ask yourself this question: “Why are you here?” Do you have an answer that you actually believe? Or are you living a life based on “I don’t know”?
What if there really were pearly gates and you really were judged after you were died. What if you were judged by a jury of the 50 people you most admire. How would you fare?
