TOOL 7: Your 81-Year Life
As I write this on the glass top desk in my office, I can look over to my right and see a sheet of paper with my entire life on it just beneath the glass. It’s my life in months. It has helped me be more serious and have more fun, given me a new urgency, and made me treasure the gifts of my past more. It’s a single sheet of paper that communicates to me my entire life without a single word.
Right now, in 2024, the average life expectancy for a man is 74.8 years and 80.2 years for a woman. Many of you are living on borrowed time.
Let’s assume the fate or the gods or fortune, enjoy symmetry, just like I do. I like the idea of trinities because I see them everywhere: the three notes of a chord, the thirds that separate the notes, and the three chords that make up the basis for most Western music. So I’m going to give you all the chance of a little extra time. I’m going to give you 81 years to spend as you wish. A trinity of trinities times another to balance, or (3 X 3) X (3 X 3), of years.
If you visit my website, www.rickwalker.com/9steps and look for the 81-Year Life, you can download a full page to print off for this exercise. You will remember this forever.
Instructions once you have printed the full-page version and have one-hour distraction-free:
- Begin filling in the months that have passed, one by one, using any non-black pen.
- Be intentional about coloring only inside the circles, as this will force you to take your time.
- Think about the important events that were happening during that little floating bubble of time. Pause for a moment to retell these stories in your mind. Some will be pleasant, but many will be painful. But pause.
- Your parents held you when you were born.
- Your first days of elementary school.
- Your first kiss.
- Your first car.
- Your first date.
- Your first job.
- The first person who really meant something who died.
- The first time you held your own children.
- Take a ruler and subdivide your life how you wish to make this even more visual and personal.
- Where is the halfway point in your life? Are you approaching it still, or has it passed?
- Should you add three column lines to reinforce that these 36-month columns are really just three 12-month years?
- Where will your kids leave your home?
- Place this sheet somewhere so you see it daily. And every month, on the day you were born, take it out and color in one more circle. And as you fill it in, give up an Alexandrian prayer:
- gratitude for your past lessons and joys,
- noticing what you have now, and
- the request for wisdom in what is to come.
- And each year, take this sheet with you as you do your annual planning and reflect on your Vision, Mission, Values, and Strategies.
You have learned from your yesterday and only have the promise of tomorrow, so you must make today count.