Of the approximately 26-28,000 days (73-79 years) that the average person lives, only a maximum of 10% of that time is actually spent as an adult making decisions about what to do. The rest of our time is spent in activities that are generally unavoidable.
For example, over the course of an adult’s life, the average person sleeps about 8,500 days and works another 3,200 days—more than half of an adult’s life.
We spend more than 1,600 days preparing and eating food, another 1,100 days travelling and about 2,700 days watching television. That’s almost a quarter of an adult’s life.
Of the remaining quarter, we spend about 1,600 days on housework, administration or shopping. Then we spend another 700 days in the bathroom.
That leaves a maximum of 4,000 days. Church, community, social, charitable, and educational activities together take no more than 700 days, and we devote no more than 600 days of our lives to our loved ones, family, and friends. This puts friends and family at the bottom of the list of areas in which we invest our time.
How much of that time have you already spent worrying instead of doing something you love?
The bottom line is that we have no more than 2,700 days left in which to decide what to do, free from any internal or external constraints. And if you’re 45, you’ve already used up half of that time. Ze Frank’s video, which you can watch at the end of this article, asks a troubling question: how much of that time have you already spent worrying instead of doing something you love?
From another perspective, in a single day, the average American spends:
8 hours and 31 minutes sleeping;
4 hours and 31 minutes working (an average that includes people who are not working; people who are working spend an average of 8 hours and 17 minutes at work each day);
5 hours and 29 minutes on sport and recreation (of which 2 hours and 53 minutes are watching TV, 40 minutes socialising and 25 minutes sport);
1 hour and 26 minutes on domestic activities;
30 minutes helping others (of which 15 minutes are helping their own children);
24 minutes 36 seconds on educational activities;
16 minutes and 48 seconds on community activities (of which 7 minutes are devoted to religious activities);
7 minutes and 48 seconds on email and telephone;
37 minutes and 48 seconds on shopping;
1 hour and 16 minutes on eating and drinking;
37 minutes and 12 seconds for personal hygiene;
and 12 minutes for activities not mentioned elsewhere.
Norel Iacob is editor-in-chief of Signs of the Times Romania and ST Network.
