According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the average life expectancy for men in the United States is 74.8 years and 80.2 years for women. This results in an average human life expectancy of 77.5 years.
Some more age-related trivia: The oldest verifiable woman to have ever lived was Jeanne Calment of France, who lived to be 122 years old, and the oldest woman alive on earth today is Maria Branyas of Spain, who is 117 years old. The oldest verifiable man to have ever lived was Jiroemon Kimura of Japan, who lived to be 116 years old, and the oldest man alive right now is John Tinniswood of the United Kingdom, who is 111 years old.
Life is made up of a precious commodity called time and, on average, women get more and men get less, but all together we get about 2.4 billion seconds in our lives. For centuries, people have been looking for ways to extend our lives and, in the last century, we have truly made some significant progress. Life expectancy in the United States was 39.4 years in 1860, 69.7 years in 1960, and is expected to increase to 85.6 years by 2060. However, some great philosopher (and no, it was not Abraham Lincoln even though you can find it on the internet) said, “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.”
For some reason, this phrase came into focus for me as I was writing this article. Initially this article was about the promise of promotions, but 30 minutes into writing, I closed my eyes to remember a story from the past when a realization hit me. While there are on average 2.4 billion seconds in our lives, only the moments that you can truly remember clearly are most significant.
This has become even more apparent to me as I get older and cram more things into my head. When I was a kid, my head had a lot of open space, and I could remember almost everything. Our school required us to memorize scripture from the KJV Bible and recite it in front of the class. Sometimes these passages would be an entire chapter of the Bible. Procrastination comes easy to a teenager, so I usually put off memorizing my verses until the night before they were due. One time, my mom saw me heading out of the house, and she asked if I had my verses memorized. I said, “No.” She sent me to my room to memorize. About 5 minutes later, I returned and said I was going out. She stopped me and requested a recitation on the spot, presumably to confirm that I wasn’t done yet, however, I rattled off every verse and then continued out the door. You see, back then, I could read it once or twice and then close my eyes and remember it all. If I tried that trick today, I would be heading back to my room.
Today, when I close my eyes and try to remember things, it is the truly significant moments that burn brightest, and everything else requires more focus to recall. I assume that this trend will continue, and it will be the significant moments that make up most of what I remember in the end. There will be bad moments, like the death of a parent or a friend, or a bad decision in an angry moment. There will be good moments, like asking Tracy to be my wife and her saying “Yes,” the birth of our children and grandchildren, a first car or the moment I found Jesus.
I have one of these moments in time that is truly unexplainable because it is insignificant in every way, and yet it is a vivid memory that radiates with happiness. I was a paper boy in ninth grade, and my friends, Bill and Tim Walker, were as well. The Walkers went on a summer vacation, and I covered their paper routes while they were gone. The three routes totaled over 300 newspapers and were spread out over town. I was not as familiar with their routes, so it took a lot longer than normal. I put a lot of miles on my bike that week.
However, one day after I finished delivering all the papers, I stopped at a small neighborhood corner grocery. You know, the old kind with a wooden screen door, wood floors and a manual cash register that is extinct these days. I purchased a Hostess Apple Fruit Pie and a bottle of Pepsi and then went outside, sat on my bike and watched a softball game next door. It was almost sunset, the evening was cooling off, and I clearly remember the sounds of the game mixed with a delicious Hostess Pie and Pepsi while I straddled my bike, enjoying that moment.
I think of this moment often, and it was this memory that flashed through my mind while I was trying to recall a different one to write about. I don’t know why; maybe it was the endorphins kicking in after four hours on my bike delivering newspapers or satisfaction of a job well done.
Or maybe it was a moment when God revealed to me that He can be found in the simple things too. The older I get, the clearer I see that of all the moments good and bad, the ones that are most memorable and significant are rarely associated with things. They are almost always associated with people and relationships and either how I felt or made others feel in those good and bad moments.
According to life expectancy statistics, I have 18.5 years or 585 million of my 2.4 billion seconds left to create a few more significant good moments. Even more motivating is the thought that, just by acting with kindness or thoughtfulness toward others, I might create good significant moments in their lives — while being totally unaware of those moments in my own life — and, thus, I can do exponential good in the world.
How many moments do you have left? I hope that you too are making the most of your moments.