Double Your Life Expectancy
I found this headline in the middle of a book, and it stopped me in my tracks. The authors asked:
Are you driven by the daily routines that force you to live in your head rather than in your life?
Absolutely.
For example, they also asked, "Do you tend to walk quickly to get to where you are going without paying attention to what you experience along the way?"
Yes! Put me in a long line or a traffic jam and my instinct is to get tense. I can't stand to be "wasting" time, even on a boring weekend when nothing else is on my calendar.
What about you? Do you move through life with a full awareness of each experience, or do you talk to people with one eye on your phone and your mind preoccupied with your obligations?
Here's where things got very interesting...
The authors asked me to consider how much of an average day am I "truly conscious and aware of the moment"? They suggested that a good guess might be two out of sixteen hours a day.
If you are 40 years old, with an equal number of years to live, that means you will actually only be fully alive for five more years (2 divided by 16 X 40).
Here's how to double your life expectancy: double the number of hours each day you are fully aware and experiencing the present moment. In other words, be aware for at least four hours a day, instead of two.
We haven't yet discovered the fountain of youth. The cures for many major diseases still evade us. It's challenging to eat right and get enough exercise. But each of us has it within our grasp to pay attention.
You may lead a more interesting and fully aware life than I do. Perhaps you are routinely bombarded by better offers than "double your life expectancy". I'm not.
The book I'm describing is Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World.
Starting today, I'm going to follow the eight-week plan and report back to you in two months. You might consider doing the same, or choosing some other path to pay more attention to the wonders of life.
Wish me luck. I do the same for you.