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Personal Development

What are you going to do with the rest of your life?

Michael Williams
5 min readAug 3, 2023
Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

Life expectancy in the West is, on average, eighty years. That’s approximately 4000 weeks or nearly 30,000 days of living.

Sounds like a long time, doesn’t it?

It does if you’re 17. At that age, I figured I’d live forever. Old age was so far in the future, I didn’t give it any thought. Anyone over the age of 30 was “old”. At 17, fifteen years was an eternity.

Now, I’m 71. If I’m lucky and avoid ailments and accidents, that means I have approximately 9 years left. Suddenly, my life is finite, not infinite. I’m talking about having several hundred weeks left, not thousands.

So what am I going to do with the time I have left?

Fortunately, I’m in good health. Apart from the aches and stiffness in the joints that a lifetime’s wear and tear bring on, I get around pretty good. Cholesterol, blood pressure, and sugar levels are good. I could stand to lose a little weight but at my age, the body is more reluctant to give up body fat than at seventeen. So all in all, I’m not complaining about my health.

So what am I going to do with the time I have left?

I’m divorced and live alone. My kids and grandkids are spread out in different parts of the world…

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Michael Williams
Michael Williams

Written by Michael Williams

I’m a storyteller, Story Coach, writer, Guided Autobiography Instructor, End-of-Life Planning Facilitator & podcast host. Oh yeah, I play ukulele.

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