In roughly 10,000 days, I’ll be around 75 years old, which is close to the average life expectancy for American men. So most of my meaningful goals, the things I want to do while my mind and body are still strong, need to happen within the next 10,000 days.
10,000 days sounds like a lot — until I consider that I’ve already lived around 18,000 of them. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem like much at all. And I know those days will go by faster and faster. Knowing I only have about one-third of my life left makes me want to make the most of every day. To live a life without regret. To avoid looking back and saying, I wish I had taken more risks. I wish I had done more.
So I created a reminder. A counter. Every day I add a day, and every day I move one step closer to 10,000. Not in a gloomy way — in a grateful way.
This “life clock” reminds me that time moves in only one direction. We don’t get to rewind. We don’t get do-overs. And strangely, that makes each day feel more valuable. As I get closer to 10,000, I appreciate each day even more — just like you savor the last few bites of your ice cream because you know they are almost gone.
When we change how we see our days, we change how we see our lives. And when we do that, life gets better and better — not because anything around us changes, but because we value the time we have while we’re living it.
We shouldn’t fear dying. We should fear not having lived.
And a simple daily reminder may be the thing that helps us live with purpose, with gratitude, and with far fewer regrets.