The Timeline

The timeline. 

When you are a child you like to brag to your friends about living to be one hundred. Of course, very few people do, and the reality is that life at one hundred might not be all that great. 

Of course, there are those exceptions. The woman who still teaches yoga, the man  competing in the Senior Olympics, and the artist painting every day. If I live to one hundred I hope I'm one of those. Except I don't do yoga, run or paint. Maybe I need to get started!

Chances are most of us will live to be a little bit more or a little bit less than eighty. The other day I saw a simple graphic that kind of put everything into perspective. It was a hand drawn timeline divided into eight sections of ten representing birth through eighty. The creator,  Unkle Adams, premise was that we spend the majority of our lives working, and that it made sense to be doing something you enjoyed. 

I couldn't help but focus on the end of the timeline because that was where my age fell. One thing you learn as you get older is that time really does fly. But unlike the old adage it is going to fly regardless of whether you're having fun or not. 

I can't say that every moment of my remaining days are going to be noteworthy. In fact, many of them are probably going to be rather ordinary. But, if the overall gist of the decade has been rewarding I'll have lived a good life. 

What the graphic did do was remind me not to put off too many things that I've dreamed of doing. As much as I aspire to be that rare centenarian, I know through experience that we don't always get to orchestrate the way those golden years play out. Being cognizant of that, might change the way we view our place on the timeline today.