By: Catherine Daleo
Many of us, whether we acknowledge it or not, tend to act as if we have all the time in the world. But the reality is that we have very little. According to the CDC, the average human life expectancy in the U.S. is about 78.8 years. And while that sounds like a LOT of time, it really isn’t. And that’s without counting the possibility that you don’t make it to that age.
Let me break it down in a way that is more understandable. Even if you live to be almost 80 years old that doesn’t mean you have 80 years of time to do the things you want to do or dream to do.
Consider how many hours you spend sleeping, going to school, going to work, traveling or commuting, watching tv, being on social media, and so on.
If one were to get the average 8 hours of sleep every night of their life (theoretically speaking – obviously it’s not going to be this exact number of course), and you live to be 79 years old, that means you’d be spending 230,680 hours sleeping in that period of time. That would then equal to 9,611 days sleeping, or 26.33 years of your life. Take that away from the rounded number of 79, and you’re left with about 52.7 years.
If you go to school for the average 6.5 hours a day, from the time you’re in first grade until you graduate high school, and you are in school for the average of 180 days out of the year, then you’re looking at 1,170 hours in a year. Multiplied by 12 years of grade school, and that is now 14,040 hours over that time. That is 585 days, or about 1.6 years of your life. This calculation doesn’t even include the hours you spend doing homework, or extra curricular activities or sports.
It also doesn’t count the time you will spend in college and all that that entails. Depending on if you go for a two year associate’s degree, a four year bachelor’s, or commit close to or over a decade of your life towards getting a masters or getting additional degrees, the hours will add up even more. If we round up the years you spend on education to an even 2, it’s drops down to 50.7 years remaining.
Within the variances of where you live, the type of job you have, how many jobs you have, and so on, If you work the regular 40 hours a week, you’re working 2,080 hours a year. And if you work that much from your early twenties until you retire in your early sixties, then you may very well end up working over 83,000 hours in your life. Mind you this doesn’t even include overtime or working more than 40 hours between two or even three jobs. This comes out to about 3,467 days, or about 9.5 years. Now we’re at 41.2 years.
According to AAA, the average American spends 17,600 minutes driving each year, which equates to about 12.2 days. If you drive for 55 years of your life (from age 16 to 70), then you’re looking at 671 days, or 1.8 years, dropping us to 39.4 years.
In 2016 CNN cited a report done by the Nielsen Company, an organization that collects and analyzes data about the media consumption of consumers, that adults in the U.S. spend just under 11 hours a day looking at a screen. From your computer at work, to your phone, to your television, we are staring at screens almost half of our entire day. And if you fall in this range, then that 4,015 hours in a year. Give or take the variances of this throughout your life (from infancy to old age), if you live to be 70 then you’re looking at roughly 281,050 hours of your life spent on looking at a screen. This equates to 11,710 days, or 32 years.
Now we’re at just under 7 and a half years of our life to have to ourselves. That’s less than 65,000 hours to use throughout our life on the things we decide to use them on. If we live to be at least 71 years old, this equates to only 2.5 hours a day.
Of course, you are likely to have more than just this amount of time every day to do with as you choose. I myself find that when I get home from work after an opening or mid shift, I have about 5 to 7 hours of time to do things. It’s up to me to decide what I will use my time for; will I sit and waste hours on Facebook or YouTube? Will I watch a movie, or something on Netflix? Will I play Pokemon? Or will I take a nap?
Or, will I read? Will I paint? Will I write? Will I visit with friends or family? Will I do something constructive with my time?
The answers to those questions are entirely up to me. I have to decide how much I want to push myself to choose to be productive over lazy. Which is easier said than done.
There are good days and bad days. Some days I’m really productive; I do some chores, I paint for a hour or two, work on some articles, and maybe meet up with a friend. And some days I might spend hours on my computer not being productive, or maybe sit and read for hours wrapped up in a book, or take a nap where I continually reset my alarm for a couple hours because I don’t want to get up yet.
The point here is that my actions, my level of productivity and motivation versus my level of laziness and procrastination are entirely up to me. I can choose to use my time wisely, or I can choose to waste it. Time that I will never get back. Time that I have nothing to show for. I alone can determine what I accomplish before my time is up.
Which means the same for you. No one is going to get you out of bed. No one is going to force you to sit and work on the things you want to do or need to work on, whether it’s making art, reading that book on your list, completing a project, doing your homework, or whatever thing you’ve been putting off.
No one is going to force you to get up and go to the gym, or walk your dog, or clean your house. And I mean force you to WANT to do it. Sure, your parents or your significant other might force you to finally clean the dishes or take out the trash, or whatever the task is, but no one is going to make you feel the inclination to do it, before you have to be told to do it.
No one, but yourself.
