If we talk about the world, currently, the average life expectancy is 70 years for men
and 75 years for women.
That might seem like than enough time to check off all the things you have on your to-do
list!
But maybe there’s more to life than checking boxes.
What if people only lived for 24 hours?
Well the first I’d do is cancel my cable contract, and that dental check up for next
week.
Won’t be around for that!
Seriously, play along with me.
We don't have that much time, so let's get going right away!
Assuming we compress 70 years into 24 hours, then approximately 12 minutes after you’re
born, you start to crawl.
Your Mom has to keep an eye on you at all times to prevent you from inadvertently traveling
to another state.
The problem escalates when you figure out how to walk 18 minutes after you were born.
Five minutes after you started moving not on all fours, but two legs, your mouth begins
to produce coherent sounds.
Yay, just 23 minutes after you saw the light of day, and you're already a speaking human!
On the other hand, several milliseconds pass, and those around you don't look too happy
about your never-ending chatter anymore.
Now you have to learn discipline fairly soon.
Then at the age of about two hours, you set off for school.
Zip, Zip Zip, and 3 hours and 20 minutes after you were born, you graduate in the half of
the class that makes the upper half possible.
Congrats, that was fast!
You'll have your first full-time job when you're 5 or 6 hours old, and when you're approximately
7 and a half hours old, you'll get your first apartment.
You're also likely to find a partner somewhere around this time.
When you're 17 hours and 10 minutes old, your kids are already grown-ups and live separately.
At the ripe age of 20 hours, you retire to the nearest lake to live out the remaining
hours of your life in peace.
Come to think of it, that's another problem of a 24-hour-long life: you can't travel,
because you don't have time for it!
You must admit that it's a shame to spend even one hour of your life (which makes up
more than 4% of your lifespan) on going somewhere.
And then, you'll probably need to come back, and that’ll mean that you've just blown
of 8% of your life!
And I won’t even get into adventures like flying from New York to Singapore!
This journey takes a bit less than 19 hours - almost all your life! - and it's just a
one-way flight!
Which life is kinda too.
Now, let's see how much time you'll spend on different activities within your lifetime.
- Your work will take at least 4 hours of your life.
- You'll spend about 40 minutes on reading newspapers, books, magazines, and other sources
of information.
- If you DO cook, it’ll take 50 minutes of your life to prepare countless breakfasts,
lunches, and dinners.
Hmmm...
It gets me thinking about why I don't just use food delivery services.
- An hour and 20 minutes of your precious life will be wasted in jam-packed public transport
or in traffic jams.
Um, isn't that a bit too much?
- Six hours will be spent on watching your favorite series and movies, spending time
at the computer, and scrolling through your social media.
And if you're a gamer, then it’ll take you 43 minutes to play all the games you have
on your list.
- If you love shopping, you'll spend 2 hours and 40 minutes on retail therapy.
But keep in mind that for a good portion of this time, you'll be searching for the partner
you've lost during shopping.
- You'll listen to music for about 5 hours of your 24-hour-long life.
- And you'll devote approximately 10 minutes of your life to showering and almost 17 minutes
to getting ready before you leave the apartment.
- You'll be occupied with laughing, crying, and arguing with people for another 20 minutes.
- And if you exercise regularly, your workouts will take up about 24 minutes of your life.
- Now, one-third of your existence, which is 8 hours, you'll spend sleeping!
Yep, seems likec a waste.
On the other hand, living for such a short time has its own pluses.
For example, it’ll take you mere milliseconds to get to work or University, clean your home,
or do other chores.
Anyway, on the whole, your 24-hour-long life is lively, bright, and packed with different
events.
You don't have time for procrastinating or "I'll do it tomorrow"s.
Your main life goal is self-educating and getting new experiences.
What activities would you concentrate on if your life lasted only 24 hours?
Tell me about your choices in the comment section below!
But you know what?
Even though the situation we were talking about is totally hypothetical, there are creatures
on Earth who indeed have super-short lives - some of them live for exactly 24 hours!
- For example, let's take the mayfly.
This insect is the shortest living animal on the planet, and within 24 hours, it has
to complete a full life cycle.
Unfortunately, it's nothing much: being born, flying a bit, reproducing, and passing away.
Besides, the mayfly spends most of its life in the form of a nymph.
That means that the insect lives in its mature winged form for just a few hours.
- A teeny marine organism called the Gastrotrich has a lifespan of about 72 hours, or 3 days.
And most of the time this transparent creature spends swimming along currents and looking
for another animal to attach itself to.
When this mission is complete, the Gastrotrich latches onto the host and reproduces there.
- As for the animals you don't need a magnifying glass to spot, the shortest living one is
the house mouse!
It lives no longer than a year; plus, the tiny rodent has loads of natural predators,
such as reptiles, birds, and whatnot.
Have you ever seen a whatnot?
Anyway, despite this, the population of these little guys doesn't get smaller!
That's mostly because they breed lightning-fast!
On the other hand, nature seems to like extremes.
Otherwise, why would it create a virtually immortal creature?
By that, I mean a jellyfish species which has invented a cool trick to staying alive
forever.
After this tiny thing has reproduced, it opts to transform back to its baby state!
So, its tentacles retract, its body shrinks, and the jellyfish sinks to the ocean floor
to start its life cycle again!
Honestly, even researchers admit that this creature confuses them to no end.
At the same time, it sounds fun to live forever!
Or does it?
What would the planet look like if people were immortal?
- You would have to go to the office forever.
- However slowly, you would still age, and it will last for eternity.
- A lot more people would take up extreme sports.
- People would be trying an incredible number of hobbies and careers.
- You would have problems maintaining life-long friendships and relationships, because, well,
you know "life-long" might turn out TOO long in this case.
And, they’ll get on your nerves.c - People would have an extraordinary number
of children, grandchildren, and so on.
Just imagine the family reunions!
- Assuming people not only lived forever, but also never fell ill, there would be no
need for hospitals and doctors.
- Soon, the population of the planet would be so great that there would be no free space
for people to live.
Analysts claim that Earth can comfortably sustain approximately 10 billion people.
But if nothing changes, we'll reach this number in 17 years or so!
That means that if people lived forever, we’d have to colonize space, create underwater
cities in the oceans, and build multi-million-story skyscrapers.
- The ever-increasing population would need more and more resources, which our poor planet
would be unable to provide.
- Fresh foods would become a rarity, and their prices would skyrocket.
Instead, people would eat mass-produced genetically modified stuff grown in laboratories.
How delicious!
- Very soon, your clothes and other personal belongings would look nondescript and uniform
because factories wouldn't be able to produce anything exciting and unique with so many
people inhabiting Earth.
So, considering most of these facts, I guess living forever might not be such a great thing
after all.
Bottom Line: Each of us has only 24 hours in a day.
So think.
Plan how to get the most and the best out of your time.
Don’t waste time on irrelevant stuff.
I love this quote from John Howe.
He said: “What a folly to dread the thought of throwing away life at once, and yet have
no regard for throwing it away by parcels and piecemeal.”
Wow.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
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