55 for 55

Today I turn 55.

According to my guesstimated morbid math, I now have somewhere around 39% of my time left on the planet. Simple math: 55 divided by 90 puts me at roughly 61% done.

Tim Urban has two posts I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. The Tail End (the math of how much time you have left with the people you love) and Your Life in Weeks (your entire life as a grid of boxes, most already filled). Between those and Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks, I've apparently been doing a lot of reading about the end.

• At 2 espresso shots a day, I have roughly 25,550 shots left. Which sounds like a lot until you remember that life's too short for bad ones.
• I read maybe 50 articles a day. That's roughly 230,000 pieces of interesting writing left to find the ones that change how I think. Critical curation matters.
• At 10,000 steps a day, that's roughly 127,680,000 steps left. Two and a half times around the surface of Earth left to explore.

I jokingly call this thinking morbid math, but I really don't view it as unhealthy or gruesome, rather as a tool on how to live.

"This is our big mistake: to think we look forward to death. Most of death is already gone. Whatever time has passed is owned by death." – Seneca

So. 12,768 days ahead. Here are fifty-five things the journey has confirmed so far.

1. Be kind.
2. But also, don’t let people take advantage of your kindness.
3. You can only control one thing: your actions.
4. Own your shit.
5. Nope. It's a complete sentence.
6. Infinite game thinking is more powerful than the finite one.
7. Form deep connections with good people.
8. But also, cut out people that are a gravity well of negative energy.
9. Exercise every day.
10. Systems over goals.
11. Consistency is key.
12. Life’s too short for shitty coffee.
13. It's ok to have that piece of carrot cake. Just not every day.
14. Power and ownership is often assumed but not reality.
15. Time is a bank. Invest and withdraw wisely.
16. Little things add up to big things over time.
17. Recognize your imposter syndrome.
18. Take time, every day, to go outside and just breathe.
19. Going for a walk often makes things better.
20. Make connections in this disconnected world.
21. Know where your food comes from: farm fresh veggies, fish that is locally caught, etc.
22. Know when you're in a hole. And stop digging.
23. Take time to be creative with your hands. Build something - even a Lego.
24. Experience different cultures through food.
25. Say no to protect the yes.
26. Inject artificial constraints - through constraint you find freedom.
27. Keep a quotes journal.
28. Keep a commonplace journal.
29. Build a personal board of directors.
30. Do the dishes.
31. Understand that you don't know everything. Especially when you're most certain that you do.
32. Laugh more. Often at yourself.
33. Embrace a spirit of exploration - be open to every channel of aliveness.
34. Don't take work too seriously.
35. Don't take life too seriously.
36. Speak with numbers.
37. Spend time always refining your critical thinking skills.
38. Email isn’t a to-do list.
39. Tend your own infrastructure: digital, physical, personal.
40. Tell the people that you love, that you love them.
41. Listen more. Talk less.
42. Reduce single points of failure.
43. Never underestimate an organization's ability to make a simple problem complicated.
44. Be a champion of possibility.
45. Believe in someone other than yourself.
46. Understand the game about the game.
47. A heart attack at 47 clarifies your priorities faster than any book. Having a second one at 49 makes you say "what the fuck?"
48. The obstacle is the way.
49. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. Be afraid of not learning from them.
50. There is one person you should seek validation from. Yourself.
51. Don't worry about fitting in - embrace your weirdness.
52. Curiosity won’t lead you astray.
53. Live an interesting life.
54. You're not living yesterday. You're not living tomorrow. You're living today.
55. Memento Mori.

Thirty-nine percent left. The math doesn't scare me.

Not making the most of it does.