How many weeks do you have left?
Author Oliver Burkeman asked his friends to quickly estimate how many weeks they think humans live for.
Some said 60,000, some 80,000, and one even said 310,000.
The answer, on average, is about 4,000 weeks. Of which nearly 1,300 are spent asleep.
That leaves 2,700 conscious weeks. If you subtract an average of 2,000 weeks we spend working, we’re left with about 700 weeks to ourselves. Work dominates. The rest feels absurdly short.
When I typed these numbers, even based on averages, they raised some uncomfortable thoughts. The first thing I did was work out where I might be on that timeline, and the number of weeks suddenly got considerably smaller.
Then I went down the rabbit hole.
Inevitably, when we’re presented with wake-up calls like these, we react in one of two ways; we want to ignore reality, or stop what we’re doing and reflect. Either way, the feeling isn’t always good. We can’t ignore that time is fleeting; yet ignore we do.
We are often so set on living in a future: the next job, title, pay rise, house, vacation, without ever stopping to think that at some point, our batteries will lose their charge, and it will end.
We had a deep gut reaction to the 4,000 weeks. A reaction that can only be described as varying levels of oh sh*t! …as we calculated the time left on our existential clocks.
Although every answer below is personal, we wanted to share a selection of thoughts that the idea of the 4,000 weeks raised;
Am I choosing my work, or is work choosing me? Jobs invariably eat up whatever time you give them. They’re insatiable. Nobody else will keep an eye on how many of the 4000 weeks our jobs have already swallowed. Is it time to make a change? Is this the moment to do what’s been eating at me for so long? Why am I waiting and what am I waiting for?
Why am I anxious about my career and future? If you’re a Gen Z, you most certainly are. Recent research shows that only 44% of Gen Z feel prepared for the future.What is driving that anxiety? Can I identify it, make it real, and then do something about it? Maybe I can course correct before it’s too late?
Why am I trying to control so much of my working life? We all know that the only thing we can control when a situation is not our own making, is our reaction. Yet we don’t often behave like that. If this is the case, how can I better manage my reaction and not spend my valuable weeks worrying about things I can’t control? What would that look and feel like?
Am I living in the now? It’s so easy to live in the future of the next job, the next vacation, house, car… and it’s become a self-help meme to be told you need to be present everyday. But cliche or not, one day, there will be no next day. It’ll be too late to be present for anything. It’s hard to read those words and think they won’t apply. What am I doing right now that I can actively enjoy? Notice? Connect to? Or simply let happen and be content?
Do I have a purpose? The search for meaning is a quest we are all on. When our values and purpose aren’t aligned, work can feel empty, and that can spill over into everything we do. 2000 working weeks can have a big downer on the other 700. So what gives me meaning in my life? What makes me feel passionate and fired up? Where do I want to have an impact?
These are just a few of the thoughts that struck us as we pondered the 4,000-week question. And we suspect it’s only the start, because by the time the next Jolt comes out, we’ll be 2 weeks down on that lovely counter 😂.
Work consumes so much of our lives. We sometimes forget just how much.
But the good news amongst these sobering thoughts?
…we can all do something about it!
With love and reflection,
The Jolt.
https://www.oliverburkeman.com/books
Good one!