A New Way To Think About How Old You Are
For most of us the problem is that we don't really know how old we are. We think we know. But we don't... Because we measure age all wrong... We say, "I am 32..." or "I am 75...". We mean how many years it's been since we were born. We count in reverse when we should really be counting forward.
Tai Lopez Jun 24, 2014


 

Measure Differently...
 

But what if we measured our age in the opposite direction - from today's date forward to the end of our life?  What if we stopped using the old-fashioned "birthday age?"  Now that is a profound question.

Because after all who is older, an 18 year old kid who only has 5 years left or an 80 year old who will live another 20 years?  To me the 80 year old is way younger.  They have more time left.

Try measuring your age going forward.  Not counting back the years from your birth.  Those past years are outside of your control. So in a sense they are irrelevant. 

A phantom, a dream...

[Speaking of time, here is a pic of shooting a movie at my house all day and all night. Blew the electricity out - the lights took so much power! Fifty extras wondering all over the place in all my bedrooms. Joy...]

Movie shoot at my house

If you change how old you see yourself, things will change for the better almost overnight.

It will be like Robert Frost's poem:

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— 
I took the one less traveled by, 
And that has made all the difference."

You won't be average anymore.

Your life will take a turn down a better path.

As I work with people in my Private Mentorship Program and my Inner Circle Program I see two things:

1. Young people wasting the prime of their lives because they mistakenly think they have lots of time. 

2. Older people feeling stuck in careers, marriages, and lifestyles they hate out of fear that there isn't enough time to change.

I'm sure you can relate and see yourself in both perspectives.

Now you might be wondering, "Tai, this way of measuring your age is impossible. No one knows when they will die."

And you would be correct.

Except.

 

A New Way To Cope...
 

There is a way to deal with uncertainty.   Insurance companies have already figured it out. You have too, you just might not realize it yet.  For example, when do you buy car insurance - before you get your license or after? Answer: The second you buy your car (that's why it's a law here in California).

When do you put on your seat belt - before you start driving or after? Answer: The second you get into your car. 

So you already know the best way to deal with uncertainty. You have to act IMMEDIATELY!

Since your auto insurance won't pay out if you buy the policy AFTER the crash, you have to assume a crash could happen at any moment and buy the policy immediately, the day you start driving.

Since you can't put your seat belt on after you get in an accident, you have to assume a crash could happen at any moment and act immediately the minute you sit in the seat.

So you have tons of common sense when comes to driving cars...

But when it comes to the big things in life, much more important than driving a car, we throw out all our common sense out the door.

We go back to the old "birthday age" understanding of time.

[Picture of Baby Jaxon helping me read today's Book-of-the-Day, Stephen Hawking's "Theory of Everything." His parents and the gemini birthday girl twins are proud. It's funny when two twins like Brigitte and Jaimee are also Gemini's. I know several sets of twins who are Gemini's. Astrology. Go figure...]

Baby Jaxon and Stephen Hawking



In today's Book-Of-The-Day, Theory Of Everything, the famous physicist, Stephen Hawking says the arrow of time moves forward because there are three forms of time:

1. Thermodynamic
2. Cosmological
3. Psychological

Hawking says even if the universe contracts at the end of time we will still not reverse aging.

 

Benjamin Button...


There is no Benjamin Button.

So you and I are left with this:  We are on a race to find the Good Life: Health, Wealth, Love, & Happiness.  You are old in relation to the years you have left.  None of us know that time frame.  So in a sense we are all the same age.

All in this game called human life together.  Steve Jobs said, "I didn't want to be the richest man in the graveyard."  Since this seems a self evident truth you must inject an urgency into your life.  Stop feeling entitled to unlimited time. Don't procrastinate.

But on the flip side, the odds are that you will probably live for a bit longer so you don't have to be hasty.  You can invest and plan for the future. You don't have to try and get everything today.  You just can't act like you have an eternity to finish.  The balance is the secret.

Buddha called it the "Middle Way" in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, his first teaching.  In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle called it the "mean", the average between two extremes:

“... Virtue is a mean [average]... between two vices... the one involving excess, the other deficiency... It is no easy task to be good. For in everything it is no easy task to find the middle... So, too, any one 
can get angry -that is easy- or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy; 
...goodness is both rare and laudable and noble.”

So take that ancient concept of balance from Buddha and Aristotle and blend it with the modern words of the most winning college basketball coach ever, John Wooden: 

"Be quick, but not in a hurry."

Or like Joel Salatin used to tell me, "Make haste slowly."

This is the mindset that will get you the good life.  Be quick about the things you have control over and be slow and patient over those things outside of your control.

Like the Serenity prayer from Reinhold Niebuhr:

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."

Or like the Mother Goose poem says:

"For every ailment under the sun
There is a remedy, or there is none;
If there be one, try to find it;
If there be none, never mind it."

This is the same concept of time, reality, and free will taught by Stephen Covey in the best selling, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

His habit #1 involves focusing on changing the things within your power.

 

Come To The Light...


So maybe you need to speed up and snap out of your funk.  Come out of the cave and see the light.  Experience more accurate levels of reality.

Remove ignorance daily and the foggy lenses of life will clear up
into a new, more enlightened understanding of life, aging, and time.  Or maybe you need to realize you aren't too old. You can still make up for time lost by carefully and methodically planning. Not just hastily reacting out of fear.

Find your weak point.  It's either being too hasty or too slow.  Focus on your real age. Not your birthday age. Your real age is unknown. 

The great explorer, Thor Heyderdahl, said it so well in the first chapter of Kon-Tiki:

“SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE IN FATE, OTHERS DON’T. I DO, and I don’t. It may seem at times as if invisible fingers move us about like puppets on strings. But for sure, we are not born to be dragged along. We can grab the strings ourselves and adjust our course at every crossroad, or take off at any little trail into the unknown.”

Don't be dragged along in.

Grab your life by the strings.

Because once you do (and I'm counting on you too do this), it will be a good life for you...

>>Click Here For The Audio Version With Show Notes And Download Link

>>Click Here To Listen On My iTunes Podcast Show

>>Click Here To Listen On YouTube



Question: What have you been too paralyzed with when it comes to time? (Leave your answer in the comments below)

 

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