Welcome to the Life Calendar

I’ve nabbed this wonderful image above from the very intricate and in-depth workings of Tim Urban’s Wait, But Why website.
Most things that leak out of Tim’s Mind are profoundly interesting, personal and well researched.
This particular blog is both sobering and inspiring.

The premise we have here is that if the average life expectancy is 90 years, this calendar represents the total number of weeks from birth till 90.
Breath that in for a moment.
This image could be printed on an A4 piece of paper, if we were curious, we could mark off the weeks already spent.
It could give a clear view of what we have done and achieved and may leave us wondering just what we will do with the time we have left.
Where we may have wasted time previously and how we might use the past to benefit the future.

Below we have the typical life, in this case, of an American.

My aim is not to alarm or disturb you, but to inspire you into peaceful and loving action. The goal essentially is to help put aside fears, judgements, opinions and preconceived ideas, to move forward with excitement and enthusiasm by being able to plan for the desires and dreams you deeply feel calling to you, fully armed with the knowledge of how many boxes there are remaining till you reach 90.

Top 5 things people regret on their deathbed:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Source

Another slant to this calendar is understanding that in the 4,680 weeks of your physical existence, there will be remnants of your actions left behind for future generations.

It needs to be counted that you are not just living your life for you, or even your nearest and dearests, you will and do contribute to future generations by what actions you take now, how you choose to live your life and influence others with your actionsAnother slant to this calendar is understanding that in the 4,680 weeks of your physical existence, there will be remnants of your actions left behind for future generations.

It needs to be counted that you are not just living your life for you, or even your nearest and dearests, you will and do contribute to future generations by what actions you take now, how you choose to live your life and influence others with your actions, emotions and choices.

As Tim mentions he has deliberated over how to best use these weeks (he uses the theory as diamonds instead of weeks), he came up with only two options:

1. Enjoy the weeks
2. Build something to make future weeks (yours and/or others) more enjoyable.

He also mentions that its quite easy to enjoy your weeks so much it actually ruins future weeks. A modicum of awareness is necessary to have a nice balance over a longer period of time.
Also mentioned is that perhaps you’re not enjoying your weeks at all, hopefully it’s offset by the fact that you are enhancing the weeks of others, otherwise this would be tomfoolery.

I really feel that looking at our lives this way, albeit via this very rigid perspective, the potentiality for opening ourselves up to living a fuller, richer life where we can more easily drop away the things that don’t really matter and discover the things that do.
Added bonuses is that perhaps in focusing our energies we will enhance the lives of others not just presently, but equally in the unseen and unknown future.

For giggles, here is a very rough and not-so-chronological view of my life thus far… Pieced together using the dates of photos from my Facecrack profile, it took a little bit of effort I must say and to be honest I got overwhelmed and much has been left out.

To me, this image is the best representation of how we can utilise the past and the future to best live in the ‘Now’.


Every week, day, hour oh so very precious as we constantly fill each week, steadfast in the mystery, brave and courageous in the unknown, in full acknowledgment of the precious finite time we have.ve in the ‘Now’.

Every week, day, hour oh so very precious as we constantly fill each week, steadfast in the mystery, brave and courageous in the unknown, in full acknowledgment of the precious finite time we have.

So, what will we do next?