Make Every Day Count

Analytics DeepLearning.AI -

Dear friends,

Last Sunday was my birthday. That got me thinking about the days leading to this one and those that may lie ahead.

As a reader of The Batch, you’re probably pretty good at math. But let me ask you a question, and please answer from your gut, without calculating.

How many days is a typical human lifespan?

  • 20,000 days
  • 100,000 days
  • 1 million days
  • 5 million days

When I ask friends, many choose a number in the hundreds of thousands. (Many others can’t resist calculating the answer, to my annoyance!)

When I was a grad student, I remember plugging my statistics into a mortality calculator to figure out my life expectancy. The calculator said I could expect to live a total of 27,649 days. It struck me how small this number is. I printed it in a large font and pasted it on my office wall as a daily reminder.

That’s all the days we have to spend with loved ones, learn, build for the future, and help others. Whatever you’re doing today, is it worth 1/30,000 of your life?

Let’s make every day count.

Keep learning!

Andrew

P.S. Don’t worry about me. I’m healthy and plan to stick around for awhile.

P.P.S. A huge thank-you to everyone who responded to my earlier online note about my birthday! ❤️