December 8: Commencing Countdown

Today was the first day of the rest of my life. Crap. According to the US Census, the average white male lives to be 70 to 78-years-old. Let's say 74. And that's if they die of old age. Who does that anymore? Nowadays, it's cancer, automobile accidents, suicide, or murder. Who has the energy to last 74 years? For the sake of argument, let's say me.

My seventy-fourth birthday will be in the year 2057 and if I choke the following day, I only have 47 years left. At 365 days per year plus 12 for the next dozen leap years and an even 60 until my twenty-eighth, we're looking at 17,227 days (and you thought 365 days of Brandon was a lot). If I die at exactly 9:oo pm, that gives me 413,448 hours, 24,806,880 minutes, or 1,488,412,800 seconds of life. Let the count down commence.

Before I go on, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I don't know when I'm going to die. I might choke on the trail mix I'm chewing on right now and keel over by the end of this sentence - well, I guess I'm going some other way. The way science is evolving, the average white male in the United States might make it into his nineties. If that's the case, all of the aforementioned math was completely for naught. Thanks a lot!

When you look at the numbers by the day, it really doesn't seem like that many. 17,227 days? That's it? What have I accomplished with the life that was given to me in the 27 years of walking this earth? Not much. I've made a few people laugh and pissed or annoyed even more off. I don't even think I've given any truly memorable gifts in the 27 Christmases I've attended or the few birthday parties I was invited to. In all honesty, I haven't made much of an impression at all.

Are you depressed yet? I don't mean to bring anyone down, but on my bike ride home tonight, the "first day of the rest of your life" expression randomly wedged itself into my head between thoughts of, "Whoa, that guy was close to killing me" and, "New episode of Survivor tonight!" and I thought it would be interesting to put the average lifespan into perspective.

I'm sure I'll do fine in this life. I don't expect to be famous or outrageously rich, but I do hope to be moderately successful. It's interesting to think about having just over 17,000 days to turn my life of slinging enchiladas into a career and into retirement. How is it going to happen? I imagine it to be a gradual thing, but I've been waiting tables for six years now! How much more gradual can it get? When will that proverbial light click on in my head at the same time my ambitious mojo takes off? It takes both to make something happen and I'm still waiting.

47 years, 17,227 days, 413,448 hours, 24,806,880 minutes, 1,488,412,800 seconds of life. Let the countdown commence.