Today sharing a story I first heard from Chip Conley sitting on the terrace at the Modern Elder Academy in Baja, days after meeting his amazing Dad.
How long will you live? What type of life will you live? Society has deeply embedded structures and beliefs in so many areas, age is one of them.
Read this piece by Chip both with a view to age and ageing, and also to ask yourself: “where else might I flip my thinking?”
What % of Your Adult Life is Ahead of You?
Chip Conley | October 22, 2019
In 2018, I went scuba diving in Indonesia with my then 80-year-old dad. One morning before our first dive, I took an online longevity quiz that said I’d likely live to 98-years-old. I asked my dad how long he thought he’d live. He mused for a moment, and then to my great surprise, said, “98!” What’s miraculous about that is…
…if that’s true, my dad was barely ¾ of the way through his adult life (if you start counting at age 18, which is when real choice opens up in most of our lives). And, at age 57, I was not even halfway through my adult years. Realization and acceptance of this new reality have opened up doors and possibilities that have re-energized my life. I’m now 58 and celebrating halftime, which means I can take up learning to surf, speaking Spanish for the first time, and who knows what else. After all, I have half my adult life ahead of me.
Just remember, most sporting matches get more interesting in their last half or quarter and theatre-goers sit on the edge of their seat during the last act of a play when everything finally starts to make sense. Could it be that life gets more interesting, not less, closer to the end?
How much of your adult life is still ahead of you and how does that shift your thinking about how you use that time?
Here’s a Forbes article on why people tend to underestimate their longevity.