You Have 47 Summers Left

Your father is going to die. Your mother is going to die. Your best friend, the girl you love, the dog that sleeps at the foot of your bed. All of them. And so are you.

You know this. Every man knows this. But you probably don’t feel it. You operate like you have unlimited Saturdays. Unlimited summers. Unlimited chances to start the business, take the trip, tell the girl how you feel, move to the city you’ve been talking about for three years. You keep saying “eventually” because somewhere in the back of your skull you believe there is an infinite supply of tomorrows waiting for you.

There isn’t.

I sat down one night about a year ago, late, couldn’t sleep, and I did something that changed how I move through every single day since. I calculated my death. Not in some morbid, cry-into-my-pillow way. I did the math. Cold, hard, and factual. And when I saw the number staring back at me, something clicked that no motivational video or self-help book had ever been able to touch. It was like someone flipped a switch behind my eyes and suddenly every wasted hour felt like setting cash on fire.

Today I am going to walk you through the same exercise. By the end of this post you will have a number. Your number. And that number will do more for your urgency, your standards, and your tolerance for bullshit than anything else you have ever read on this site. That is a big claim considering what TFM subscribers have access to. I stand by it.

The Math

Most men have no idea when they are going to die. They have a vague sense that it is “a long time from now” and that is the end of the thinking. That vagueness is a weapon the Sleepwalker uses against you every single day. Because “a long time from now” means there is no rush. No urgency. No reason to start today when you could start next month or next year or after the holidays or when the timing is right.

So let’s kill the vagueness. Right now. Pull up your phone and do this with me.