Math of Life

Let’s just say that you will live for 80 years on this earth.

In 80 years, there are 960 months.

In 80 years, there are 4160 weeks.

In 80 years, there are 29, 200 days.

In 29, 200 days there are 700, 800 hours.

In 700, 800 hours, there are 42, 084, 000 minutes.

In 42, 084, 000 minutes, there are 2,522,880,000 seconds.

If you are to spend 8 hours a day (one third of each day sleeping), then you have 467, 200 waking hours.

In 467, 200 waking hours, there are 28,032,000 waking minutes.

In 28, 032,000 waking minutes, there are 1,681,920,000 (1 billion, 681 million, 920 thousand) waking seconds.

In the year 2000, there was an estimated 6 billion people on the planet.

In three years, from 1997 to 2000, there was an estimated growth of 200 million people.

The rate of population growth continues to accelerate.

Let us estimate that there are currently 6, 400, 000, 000 (6 billion, 400 million) people on the planet at this very moment.

You have 6,400,000,000 people and (if you live 80 years) 1,681,920,000 seconds of life that you are not sleeping.

If you divide the number of waking seconds that you have in an 80 year life equally among the world’s 6.4 billion people, you get a number of 0.26.

The significance of the number 0.26 is this: if you were to spend your entire 80 years with people, dedicating an equal amount of time to everyone on the planet, you would get 0.26 seconds with each person.

Not even enough time to say ‘hi’ or to even make eye contact.

If you were to attempt to spend one hour with each person alive at this very moment on the earth, you would only get to meet 700,800 people...that is only 0.00012 percent of the world.

Consider how long it takes to really get to know someone well and build a solid friendship? How many hours? Days? Months? Years?

If you were to have 10 really good friends in your life span, that would mean you would have gotten close to only 0.0000000016% of the planet’s population.

When you say that someone is “One in a million”, that means there a 6400 other people just like them alive right now. If you have 10 good friends in your life, they are each 1 in 640,000,000. Consider that your odds of winning Lotto 6/49 (1 in 13,983,816) are 45.8 times better than the chances of meeting each of those 10 people.

The point is this: No one can spend every waking hour of their lives meeting people. We need to eat, to think, to pray, to have some time alone, to study, to work, etc. This reality brings the number of 0.26 seconds per person even lower, to maybe 0.026 (and that is still being very ambitious!).

There are people that you will spend years with. There are people that you will spend most of your lifetime with. Who those people are is not an accident. When you think of the chances of becoming close to someone, know that the odds are huge!

If you were meant to be close to everyone, there would be enough time to for everyone. The fact is, there is only enough time for a select few people that you are meant to know, and who are meant to know you.

Remember this and we can’t look at our family and friends as anything but extraordinary miracles. Out of millions of possibilities, I have been blessed to be close to you. We have something precious that God knew we had to share with each other, that is why he orchestrated life in a way that we would meet.

I am grateful for that.