It's 3 a.m. I try to stop my racing mind by taking a slow, deep breath, but it only works for a matter of seconds.
One thought after another zipping past faster than my mind can perceive, until one seems to stick to the blank canvas. Instead of thinking about what I have to do tomorrow, or how many days it's been since I've called my mom, this thought appears to be an existential one. But instead of the typical and cliche, "What happens after death?" and "What is the meaning of life?" my exhausted brain decides to take a darker turn. If I were to take out all the chunks of time dedicated to my health or responsibilities, how much free time do I have in my life?
This led me to the stark realization that the lives we live are even shorter than we think.
Let’s assume that the average person lives to be the age of 78 here in the United States. There are natural functions we all need to do to stay alive, such as eating and sleeping.
Assuming the average meal is about 20 minutes, and we have to start cooking for ourselves about a fourth of the way into our lives, we spend approximately four years cooking, eating, and drinking. The act of going to the bathroom and practicing good hygiene takes away another two and a half years.
The amount of sleep we need varies depending on what stage of life you are in, starting off with 14-17 hours of sleep as a newborn and dwindling down to seven to nine hours of sleep as an adult. In total, the average person spends approximately 28 years of their life asleep.
At this point, just by the natural functions that the body needs to do every single day, we have used up 34.5 years of our life, or 44 percent. Nearly half of our lives is dedicated to staying alive!
Now we have all the responsibilities society expects from us. If you add up all the time spent in class and studying/doing homework, the average person spends approximately four years in education.
Education leads us to get jobs, and those jobs eat up approximately 10.5 years of your life (hope you're doing something you love to do!) The average person spends one and a half years commuting to their job as well.
If you have your own house or apartment, you're going to end up doing about six years’ worth of chores in your lifetime.
If you have a child, you're going to spend approximately one and a half years taking care of that child (by means of changing diapers, taking him/her to school, etc.)
You have to buy your food, clothes, goods and services, which takes up about two years of your life.
Fun, leisure activities such as video games, social networks, and television take up approximately nine years of our time. For some, these activities are nine years well spent, but for a lot of us, those things don't make us truly happy and don't help us grow into the people we want to become.
All of these chunks of your life add up to 69 years worth of time.
Y 😊 Okay I will! Thank you 😊 So far I’m eyeing a 2006 Volvo XC90, a 2006 KIA Sportage EX, or a 2009 Suzuki Grand Vitara Premium. But I don’t know yet haha all are under 100k miles m! v cv set 
Nine years is how much time you have in your entire life to do what you truly want to do. Nine years to spend time with your friends, family and loved ones. Nine years to go on vacations and travel. Nine years to find your true love. Nine years to get in shape, climb Mount Everest, and sky-dive.
Your short existence just got a whole lot shorter. How are you going to spend it?
