Life ( and time) in percentages

There's absolutes and then there's percentages.  And very often,  it's viewing things through the prism of the latter that provides perspective. 

Take the case of your expenses.  Something that's material as a proportion of your income is something you keep track of   something you monitor,  try to save on/ optimize. You could do the same considering it as a fraction of your wealth instead. Now if its something that's non material as a proportion of your income/ wealth , you really wouldn't be losing much sleep over it ( unless it's a really frequent expense)- would you for example think too much about a one off expense of a few hundred bucks if your monthly income runs into a few lakhs.  Probably not.  Atleast one shouldn't :)

Ditto for a company,  instead of an individual.  If you are looking at cost heads to optimize,  you are looking at the material recurring ones. 

Same holds true let's say in investments.  Unless you get supranormal returns,  you usually wouldn't lose sleep over an investment that's 0.01% of your net worth. But the ones with 10% and 12% are material to matter,  even  if you diversify

If you are analyzing an industry and its dynamics,  you probably look at players with a material share in the industry, not the ones with 0.001%. If you are looking at how the global economy is performing,  you look at how the US does, or how China does or how the eurozone does. Countries with a material share in world GDP.

Anyway that's a long introductory ramble to the main point of my post... which is: it makes sense to view the most scarce commodity on earth in percentage terms as well: time.  Or atleast time as seen through the prism of our mortal human lives

Assume a life expectancy of say 75 years.  A year,  is it material? At about 1.3%, probably not very small but not all that much either. But a year when you are 10, is very different from a year when you are 40!. That 1.3% suddenly moves to a 3% when viewed as a proportion of the expected time one has remaining when you are 40. 3 years when you  are 40? Closer to a very material 10%. A decade when you are 35- that's a very very material 25% of the time you have remaining!

You could do the same with more specific aspects of your life.  Take career. An even more finite time space of about 35 years.  A year as a proportion is 3%, 3 years is a material 10%. 10 years is a huge 40%! 

Could do the same calculation with various other stages of your personal and professional lives.

Ofcourse these numbers by themselves don't mean much except give a sense of perspective,  what is it that you are going to do with a material part of your life ? You could use it optimally or you could waste it away,  or you could try to use it the best way you can atleast,  even if the end results don't turn out what you want- for- let's face it- luck,  right time right place etc matters. But once viewed in percentage terms,  atleast you can ask yourself that question . Even if the answer isn't obvious or easy . But viewing time  hrough percentages and what's material helps prioritize.

As I type this,  Twitter's year progress bar tells me we are 65% or 2/3rds through 2022! And as i started typing this , I had about 3 hrs before I normally sleep,  a material 20% of waking hours.  And I have already wasted a near 30% of that remaining time today,  writing this blog,  which probably nobody except me would read ( and i myself might later delete).

 Damn!





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