In the scheme of things when you spend two hours in traffic each work day, or half an hour waiting in line for a coffee, or forty hours a year gathering together your receipts and filling out your tax return, what % of your life are you spending doing things you don’t want to be doing?

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[A deleted scene from My Brazilian]:

At a restaurant in Argentina, after many-a glasses of Malbec and chocolate fondue, I found myself in an existentially mathematically reflective mood.

“How many hours am I to be on this planet?” I asked, taking pen to paper.

Let’s say I’m really lucky (or not, depending how well I maintain health) and I live to 120 years old.

120 years (x 365) = 43 800 days, which (x 24) = 1 051 200 hours.

‘A million hours! That’s really not very much.” I frowned at my diary.

(x 60) = 62 412 000 minutes.

‘Hurry up with that bill,’ said Rosa after I’d shared my calculations.

‘Not many hours left,’ Kellee joked.

‘Changes your perspective doesn’t it.’ I remarked.

 

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So… say I spend 50 years working somewhere it takes an hour in transit to reach each day… 50 years (x 48) = 2400 working weeks (x 5) = 12000 working days, (x 2) = 24000 hours in transit. That’s (24000/1051200) = 1% of my life sitting in traffic! Crap!

How long did I just spend posting this? How long did you spend reading it? Tick tick tick tock… 🙂