So how about learning something about ourselves, or something about being a human being!!!
Seventy-nine years, that's the average lifespan of an American citizen. if you're in Japan it's 83, Canada 82, 68 in India and Sierra Leone 50. So let’s consider American ,79 years, but not all of those are free. If you sleep eight hours a day, you'll sleep for about a third of your life which cuts that down to fifty three years. if you're like 68 percent of American students, you'll study from kindergarten to grade 12 and then head to college right after this takes three years worth of time from your life and brings the total down to 50. If you spend a typical 45 years of your life working full-time at 40 hours a week this amounts to 93 thousand and six hundred hours or twelve years of time which brings a toll down to 38 years. If you retire at the current average age of 63, you'll spend about 16 years of your life in retirement which might be nice ,but some statistics show that sixty-eight percent of people over the age of 65 suffer from some sort of disablement and require long term care so that's not exactly the freest time in your life. So that brings a total down to twenty-two years the average American spends a little over 10 percent of the like cooking, cleaning, eating or doing housework. This amounts to eight years of their life and brings a total down to fourteen years the average American will spend a bit over two and a half percent of the life taking care of kids or family which amounts to roughly two years and brings the total down to twelve years.
I think most people will agree that those activities are fairly standard and usually considered non negotiables they're going to happen in our lives. so that means we have twelve years worth of absolute freedom right. Well if you're a typical young adult you spend about five hours a day on your phone which amounts to 118 thousand six hundred twenty five hours over your lifetime or roughly fifteen years. So there goes all your free time or maybe you're not like those young adults you don't even have a phone but if you're like the average American you spend about two and a half hours a day watching television amounting to fifty seven thousand nine hundred and thirty three hours over the average life or seven years that would bring your total down to five years. This is assuming you only watch two and a half hours a day and that you start watching at the age of 15 so in reality. This number is probably a lot higher in the modern day so it's at this point.
I should ask you how do you feel did it make you sad, happy, shock or maybe angry. Because how you feel about this data is you telling yourself something important about your own life. What it didn't say is that yes we're going to spend 12 years worth of time at work but what if it's work that we love if we spend the 8 years of our life involved in cooking, cleaning and eating, preparing the best food and maintaining good hygiene we might be a lot healthier.
Heading into retirement and not require long-term care so those 16 years may actually be quite free. And every bite when we're taking care of our kids or family are we thinking about what happened in the past or the future. Are we indulging in the present and making new memories? Are we truly enjoying the time we spend on our phones? or are we mindlessly scrolling through an infinite loop of articles, videos and information? Do we enjoy watching TV or is it just something to do when there's nothing to do.
The exact precision of the numbers I've presented isn't important. What is important is the feeling the information gave you. what I'm trying to say is that life even if we are truly for you for the whole 79 years is extremely short. Life has been around for 3.8 billion years on earth. You and I are just the tiniest of tiny specks in existence. Whether we like it or not our clocks are constantly draining our most precious asset our time is constantly being fought over and we might never come back.
If you're working a job you hate, that's 12 years of your life gone. If you aren't healthy or financially prepared for retirement, that's another 16 years gone. If you're in the habit of constantly checking your phone or going home and watching TV on the couch all day and you don't really enjoy these activities, that's at least another 10 years of your life gone. So it's time to make a decision we can do what we think we're supposed to do or what people tell us to do passively. Let life pass by and keep on thinking that. We have a lot of time left constantly think about the past and worry about the future lose an hour here and an hour there and keep waiting for tomorrow or we can truly understand the shortness of life and start taking control of it start appreciating each moment for what it really is a moment. We'll never get back and become deliberate with our actions I'm not advocating anyone hastily quit their job or drop out of school not at all .Self disciplined and delayed gratification are great tools that can be used to maximize overall freedom and enjoyment in life. The only thing I'm advocating is to be mindful of how we spend our own time.
let's go back to that average value of 12 years of freedom for a second that amounts to one hundred and five thousand and one hundred and twenty hours assuming that the 10,000 hour rule is correct. If you use those twelve years of free time perfectly, you could become world class in about ten different activities. That's crazy and I've never heard of anyone doing that and it's probably because humans aren't capable of being that efficient but if you have at least one big dream in life. I hope you're constantly moving your life towards that and don’t cares about what other people have to say because you legitimately don't have the time. But if you focus on your craft and are mindful of your time I don't think there's any reason you can't become world-class in at least one thing.