Dave Winer‘s celebrating his 50th birthday tomorrow. It’s funny in life how time gets away from you. Dave’s pondering what turning 50 means. I recently came face-to-face with what life expectancy means.
For reasons I won’t go into just now, I recently needed to do some calculations about stuff where I needed to make an assumption about my life expectancy. So, I looked it up.
I found a very nice life expectancy chart (PDF) in some US government data. Looking at the life expectancy chart for males in the US on page 9, I found my “number”: 22.5. Dave’s “number” is 29.1. [Note: This male life expectancy chart is one of those charts that should be posted above the men’s urinal as a reminder to us all!]
That 22.5 number hit me hard — that’s “just around the corner” I thought! Although they’re equivalent, age 80 seems so far away — while a bit more than 20 years does indeed feel like it’s just around the corner.
I wish Dave all the best for his remaining 29.1 years — and, in the meantime, I’m living my next 22.5 years to the fullest! After all, there’s not all that much time left – for either Dave or me!