Less Than a Billion Seconds
Thursday, June 15, 2023
"For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are 86,400 seconds in a 24-hour day and 31,536,000 in a non-Leap Year. If you live to be 80 years old, you will have experienced 2,522,880,000 seconds during your eight decades of life.
Now subtract eight hours – or 28,800 seconds per day – over the course of those 80 years and you are still left with 1,681,920,000 seconds to spend doing other things. If you work at a 40-hours per week job from age 20 to age 65, that’s another 324,000,000 seconds after deducting two weeks’ vacation per year. So, now you’re down to just 1,357,920,000 seconds of unaccounted for time.
Oops, we forgot the 13 years of 7-hours per day, 5-days per week, and 9-months per year schooling you received, including kindergarten, even if you didn’t go to college. So, deduct another 65,520,000 seconds from your ticking life’s clock. Subtract an hour per day for grooming and another two hours per day for commuting and guess what? You only have 977,040,000 seconds left!
That’s less than a billion seconds, meaning that you only have 38.7% of your life remaining. Goodness gracious, where did the time go?
So now, my friend, ask yourself this question…
Why would you want to spend a single second being angry, worrying, gossiping, holding grudges, or engaging in any number of the worthless and time-consuming activities we allow to consume our days? Watching TV and scrolling on our phones (I am guilty as charged) steal precious millions of seconds over the course of our lives, so let’s not allow Satan to hijack the rest of our “free” seconds in fruitless endeavors.
“So teach us to number our days, That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12 (NASB, 1995)
“Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.” Ephesians 5:16 (NLT)
- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President
