A week has just raced past and it’s time to write a blog post – the 479th.  The first twenty or so posts were published randomly when I thought of something to write.  Only the last 457 have been published regularly on Wednesdays.  However, given the average life expectancy of a male in Britain is 4225 weeks, that implies I have been writing a weekly post for slightly more than a tenth of my life expectancy.  More depressing, considering the speed at which weeks are racing past me, is that I probably only have about 1000 weeks left.  A thousand is a big number if you are trying to count sheep to get to sleep but quite a small number when thinking about the life of the universe [see ‘Will it all be over soon?‘ on February 2nd, 2016].  I have mixed feelings about my perception of a thousand weeks of life remaining.  It seems short enough to make me pause, think about slowing down so that the weeks do not fly past so quickly and to write about it.  But it is probably not short enough to induce me to make dramatic changes to my lifestyle.  Perhaps the most likely effect will be to increase my awareness of the need to make time for the important things in work and life.  At work that probably means being more focussed on the big picture while in life it suggests focussing on the atelic activities, i.e. those pursued for their own sake, such as our weekly walk up Moel Famau.

Source: Mia Levitin, Hacking the life hack, FT Weekend, 21/22 August 2021.