How Old Are You? || I'm Nearly 7,000

How old are you? (and no, I'm not talking about animal years) Think that's a trick question? Well, it's not.

I recently heard a talk on “Numbering Your Days”, and the speaker had us do just that—number our days.

To do it yourself, you need to add three numbers (listed below) For an example, I'll take a 22-year-old whose birthday is August 21, 1996. That person's numbers will be in parenthesis and colored green. ☺

1. Firstly, you need your age x 365 (i.e. 22 x 365 = 8,030) This gets you a good portion of how old you are!
2. The second figure you need is the number of leap days through which you've lived. {here is an at a glance list of leap years since 1904: 1904, 1908, 1912, 1916, 1920, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, 1948, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976,1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020} (our 22 year old was born in 1996, but after the leap day, so he has lived a total of 5 leap days)
3. The third number you need is the number of days since your last birthday. {this quick chart may help: Jan-31, Feb-28, Mar-31, Apr-30, May-31, June-30, July-31, Aug-31, Sept-30, Oct-31, Nov-30, Dec-31} (our example's birthday was August 21^st, leaving only 10 days in August + the 26 days we are into September = 36)

If we add all those numbers up (Fig 1+ Fig 2+ Fig 3= Grand total) (8030 + 5 + 36 = 8,071 for our example!) we get how many days old we are. If you count today, that's the day you're living in now, so you could say “It's my 6259^th day of life” or “I'm 6258 days old” Either way, since it technically means the same thing. ☺

I looked it up, and apparently the average lifespan (at least in the U.S.) is 27,375 days. Try subtracting your number from that one (27,375 - 8,071 = 19,304) and you get an estimate of how many days you have left.

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Okay, I realize that truth is? nobody knows when it's their day to die except for God. So maybe it could seem pointless to find out how many days old we are or how many we might have left. But I believe that if we learn the mindset of numbering our days, we open the doors to allow several things to happen:

1. We realize how fragile our lives really are, compared to eternity. Our very breath is held by God. I think that if we cultivate this mindset, a gratitude toward God will naturally arise.

2. We will celebrate more in the little things of life—like when we reach our 7000^th day, or our 6666^th day, or our 5252^nd day, or whatever it is. Each day becomes a momentous occasion, rather than just celebrating on a birthday once a year (though that's awesome, too) Besides, who doesn't like an excuse to go out for more ice-cream? ☺

3. We could make today count. For the glory of God, for the furtherance of His kingdom. Would our priorities change if we realized the worth of each day?

I feel like I'm using a lot of borrowed material for this post, but I do want to share what I've learned, so I'm going to end with two questions someone asked me lately:

If you realized that today was the last day of your life, would you live it differently?

Would the same things matter to you?

Maybe take time to write out the answers on a piece of paper. Try living one day as if it counted, because it does!

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Have any of you ever done anything like this? Okay, I also know that there is an app available that does all this math work for you...has anyone used the app before? And I'd love to hear how old you are, so feel free to post in the comments!! ☺

Blessings & Love,

Georgie Grace