The Joys of Living a Hundred Years 24 Hours at a Time

Today, the average lifespan of a human being is 70 years old. If you’re a health buff, you’ll get a higher chance at living well to your 90s. You can consider yourself blessed if you can reach a hundred years old.

100 Years

100 years! That’s too long. It’s easy to fall into the trap of procrastinating and delaying goals in life if we focus too much on the possibility of living a hundred years. But more often than not, we forget that all we ever have to live is 24 hours – nothing more, nothing less.

24-Hour Life

Thinking about a 24-hour life makes a lifetime even shorter! But is it really 24 hours? Taking a closer look, we still need to sleep 7 to 8 hours, which leaves us with just 16 hours to do something remarkable in one day. That’s insanely short. Life is fragile, and we all have thousands of reasons to rest, postpone, and sulk in sadness. But the idea of living life 24 hours at a time adds a sense of urgency to chase after what we want.

Memories and realizations are all we can ever take from the past. Even our achievements and recognition will sometimes fall short in saving us in times of dire financial need or emotional setback. What the future holds is our hopes. Hopes of something great – hopes that we can pull ourselves out from whatever nightmare we are in right now.

Taking Control of the Highs and Lows

I’ve always been a fan of TED talks, and one of the speakers that inspire me is Neil Pasricha.

In his speech about his blog 1000AwesomeThings, he said:

“We will all have high highs and big days and proud moments...

But between those high highs, we may also have some lumps and bumps too.

It’s sad, and it’s not pleasant to talk about, but your husband might leave you. Your girlfriend could cheat.

Your headaches might be more serious than you thought, or your dog could get hit by a car on the street.

It’s not a happy thought, but your kids could get mixed up in gangs or bad scenes.

Your mom could get cancer. Your dad could get mean.

And there are times in life when you will be tossed in the well, too, with twists in your stomach and with holes in your heart.”

His words hit me to the core, and I can’t agree enough.

Living the Hundred Years 24 Hours at a Time

In his talk, he shared three keys to live an awesome life – attitude, awareness and authenticity. Attitude means maintaining a positive approach to life. Awareness refers to how we appreciate the world and the things that happened to us. This means we must rediscover and embrace our inner three-year-old self who’s just seeing the world for the first time. And lastly, authenticity, the art and science of knowing and staying true to who you are.

It feels good to think of the possibility of living a long life. But it’s more enlightening to realize that we just have 24 hours to live. It clarifies our life.