30 years

February 2023

I'm 31 years old. The average life expectancy in the United States is 77 years old. If I live an average life expectancy, I have 46 years left to live.

I do not remember the first 5 years of my life. I did not have meaningful, independent thought until I was 13 to 15 years old. I did not have meanginful control over my life until I was 22 to 24 years old. I have had only 7 to 9 years of significant control - mentally and physically - over my life out of the 31 years I have lived. If I maintain decent soundness of mind and body, I have 40 to 46 years ahead of me. That's 6 to 7 times more than what I've had thus far.

What can you accomplish with your life when you think on that long of a horizon?

Surely, you do not want to plan everything out. It will never work out that way. The uncertaintity in year 5 is far too high, much less in year 30 or 40.

But if you acknowledge that your life is long, you can slow down a bit. You do not need to optimize for the short term. You can approach life with a learner's mindset. You can build skills that will benefit you in your later years.

It's a mental trick for not thinking of your earlier years as "lost" years. On ocassion, I think about the time that goes by where I don't really do much at all. The days, week, months that I spent where I didn't make "progress"... whatever that means. In a long time frame, that amount of time means nothing. I have 6x as much time ahead of me as I've had thus far. To this point, I have lived a full life... and yet I have 6x more full lifetimes ahead of me. Life is abundant.

Tiny caveat that life could actually end tomorrow. It's possible that I have only one hour, one day, or one week of life left. I can see that as being a reason to optimize for the short term. If you might die tomorrow, shouldn't you maximize today? Perhaps. I cannot think of a strong argument against that. I guess it comes down to the details. I would agree that you should not continue doing things that you truly do not enjoy. If you have a job that you hate, you should do your best to get out of that situation. But I don't think you should go do a bunch of drugs because you might only live until tomorrow. I don't know how to separate and attack the differences.

Don't take the day for granted. Don't rely on the future.

The things you do on a daily basis should be those that you would be content doing in the future. They should follow the same set of principles and beliefs. You should be happy to do them in 10 years just as much as you are today. If you'd be okay having a glass of wine for lunch in 10 years, have one today. But you probably wouldn't be okay with drinking a full bottle of wine for lunch every day of the week, so you shouldn't do that.

Live a day that you'd be happy living in 10 years from now.

Don't overthink that. That doesn't mean, start a company and work on your life's mission.

It means, treat people with kindness and respect. Don't overindulge. Love your family and friends. Don't stress over triviality.