Happy Friday!

 

A little math game...

Today 9/18/2020 is Friday, the 6th day of the week. But it’s also the beginning of the 6th “day” of the year, if 2020 were divided into 7 equal parts. And, coincidentally, it’s also the beginning of the 6th “day” of my life, if my actuarial lifespan is divided by 7.

 

Happy Friday! In more ways than one...

I like to play with time scales for a perspective shift. Imagine the whole year as a week of 7 long days. The Sunday of 2020 began on January 1^st and lasted 366 / 7= 52 days. The Tuesday of 2020 began Feb 22^nd. Today, Friday, Sept 18, 2020, is the Friday of this week, but it is also the beginning of the “Friday” of 2020 (261/366 = 71%).

 

Metaphorically speaking, we're down to the last two days of the year. Are we also 71% (5/7) complete with our goals for the year? Will our motivation on Friday and Saturday be as high as it was on, say, Tuesday or Wednesday?

 

Another game I play with time scales relies upon the macabre wisdom of actuarial tables. Are you familiar with these? Actuarial tables are used to calculate the expected remaining life for a man or woman who has already attained a given age. Soon I will hit a major milestone birthday, the Big 6-0. I like to cling to my 50s and joke that I am 59.999 years old. But on average, a man who has attained the age of 59 in America can expect 24 more years on this planet. My actuarial lifespan is 83 years. Now, I aspire to live into triple digits, but the odds are what they are. Using the average, I figure I have already lived 71% (59/83) of my days.

 

Did you notice something interesting? Today is the Friday of this week. If the year were a week, today is the Friday of the year. If my lifespan were a week, today is also the Friday of my life!   

 

The point of this time-shifting exercise is to realize that time marches on, and Mondays can be kind of rough, and by Friday, most people are looking forward to the weekend. We may not have the same stamina and motivation for the Friday and Saturday of life as we did for the Tuesday and Wednesday. 

Plan accordingly!