Lindsey Dawson - Days Alive

Courtesy of Lindsey Dawson.

I was shocked recently to come across a website that could calculate for me in a second how many days I’ve been alive. (You can find it on www.peterrussell.com/age.php). For me, it’s more than 23 thousand days.

Terrifying thought! Of course, not all of those thousands of days have been in any way special. Life just progressed. Chores were done. I turned up at work. I cooked, showered, slept, talked, walked, shopped and drove around. All pretty darned ordinary, really, except for the miracle of being alive at all.  We take that for granted usually, unless we’ve survived something that should have or could have killed us.  Then life itself becomes stunningly interesting.  

Russell, who has a hugely expansive worldview and is the author of some profound books, prefers of think of his life in days rather than years.  “I can hold a day’s experience in mind quite easily,” he writes on his site. It’s much harder, he says, to go back and take stock of a whole year. Many incidents and discoveries are inevitably forgotten.

He also finds it more meaningful to think he’s lived through more than 20,000 days, rather than 50-plus years.   “And it reframes the future. I have, probably, thousands of days still to come. Thousands new days to discover, enjoy and learn from.”

I don’t quite agree with him. I think we can go back and take stock of events many years after they’ve occurred. But I do agree that life is all about discovering, enjoying, and learning about your existence. That’s what this writing you’re doing is all about.  Your life, everyone’s life, is unique. It deserves to be noticed and celebrated.  
 

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