Is life as a limited time offer?

Advertising campaigns often use the notion of scarcity to convince you to buy something. It works many times because we seem to have a psychological scarcity radar built into our nervous systems. If we believe something’s going away soon—we’ll naturally feel compelled to acquire it.

Have you ever considered life to be the biggest limited time offer there is? You start out as an infant, grow into adulthood, live out your life, and then pass away. But being born implies dying as sure as the sun rises tonight and sets tomorrow. There’s absolutely nothing you can do to prevent your passing.

When you procrastinate, you’re pretending to be immortal. And nobody’s immortal. The time you have right now is the only time you have. The time is right now to build yourself up, to be an influence on your children, and contribute your gifts to the world.

Some people figure this out after a serious illness or a brush with death. However, there’s an easy way to form this idea as a visceral feeling without having to become ill or be in an accident. Get out a regular calculator. If you assume the life you’re involved in right now will last perhaps 80 years, multiply 365 by 80. The number 29200 shows how many days you can expect to live.

If that doesn’t do it for you, take your current age and multiply it by 365. If you’re 45, then the number 16425 shows up in the calculator window. Subtract 16425 from 29200 and you get 12775. That’s 12775 days left to do what you find important to you. Tomorrow it will be 12774. Next month it will be fewer. Next year it will be even fewer. Someday it will be less than 100. If you’ve waited until the last minute to give your gifts, you won’t be able to give very many of them.

The offer’s going away. You’re only renting your body for now. Use it as well as you can before you the landlord makes you give it up so someone else can have a go.