WHAT IS THE NUMBER OF YOUR DAYS

By Samson Abanni 

Wherever you are, whoever you are I want to ask you for a favour.

Pause whatever you are doing right now and check the time. We don’t have time. As Oliver burkeman pointed out in his beautifully  written books “four thousand hours”man lives up to 80yrs, he has then spent a total of four thousand weeks living-only four thousand. And we know that many will not live up to that amount of time, even though that is  paltry. The question that begs to be answered is why are people not slowing down to live every moment among the few they have to spend on earth since what was not truly experienced was not had. Why are we in such a rush to save time instead of using it to live. What exactly do we mean by saving time anyway, when all we are perpetually doing is dashing about in pursuit of one goal and once that is done switching to another.

The good book in the book of proverbs said something  very interesting

“he has put eternity in their hearts that they cannot find the head or tail of his works”.

This,  I dare say is a very profound statement hidden in wisdomese  as it is characteristic of the book of proverb. An attempt to unpack it expose this bright light that I invite you to wear your dark shades.

Here, the wise king under inspiration is attempting to hide a deep secret about life by putting it in plain sight.  The passage reminds me clearly of the graphic illustration that was made to  illustrate the futile effort of chasing money, which shows a man with a stick attached to his own collar at one end and having dollar bills dangling in front of him, at the other end of the stick which he chases but can never get to.

He has put eternity in their heart.He has fixated on something  they cannot never get, at least not in this lifetime, and their fixation on it has made them unable to make head or tail of the sleigh of hand of life.  And if we pause to let this sink, it sinks with a thud,  and pattern begins to emerge and the smoke of the import of the statement start rising and we can’t help but nod heads in agreement. But how?

Compared to eternity, our lives is less than a drop in the ocean yet we plan and live like we have a hundred forevers. We strut the earth like we will be here till the end comes.we live as if we have the time to try everything there is to try, to experiment all pleasures, to follow all paths and before returning to choose the best. We are each born with the heart of an adventurer-and the talent to get lost in fields of pleasure. We are born with eternity in our hearts. We have mind so set on timelessness that we forget that our time here ends.We are so enamored with immortality that, at least in our heads, it is the lens through which we see everything  and we get offended when reminded about our finitude.We know we won’t live forever but  we treat that knowledge  as an illegitimate child. That is why men are comfortable talking about everything  under the sun except  their end. And when a few attempt it they are rebuked, because you cannot discuss it without forcing everyone  to think about it-to accept the possibility of that it may be true, in some way we act like the thinking will give the thought an existence we owe it to ourselves  to quell .

We are like men who so fixated on a possible sumptuous dinner that they hardly noticed his breakfast and lunch . We are so swallowed up by the thinking and planning for the end that we have missed the understanding that the beginning  and middle are part of our lives. A man who hasn’t bothered to live today is pulling his hair that he cannot live forever.

But if this wasn’t the case, if the infinity  dominated mindset was not the way of life, what would have passed as actual living?

If people took their present lives, today, this moment that’s given, as all they have- or as all they are as yet sure of, what kind of existence would be expected of them. The answer is surprisingly easy to establish. I call your attention to the stories you have read  of people with terminal illness who may have been given a year or two or a few months to live- what usually do they fill their few months with. What do they reach out for with this limited time left. I personally haven’t heard of anyone who wished  for a new car or device or a house or more sex. Almost without exception each has always gone for more experiences rather than things. Some have requested for photographs  with celebrities ,a tour around the world, vacations in far away land- they have always been egregious consumers of all the experiences they can afford. As if to pack a full suitcase of experiences for the journey home. This suggest to us that if we have a more palpable understanding of our finitude then we will be reaching out for less things and more experience.

“Teach us to number our days..”. Another thorny passage from the good book. So what really does it mean. Take a look at this illustration.A man has just won a one million dollars jackpot. As is often the case, he goes on a spending spree and naturally, he spends without checking his account balance because  its money he vdid not work  for. He keeps at this for days then he looks at his balance on the 9th day and he sees 450, 000 dollars-the is still a lot of money but a switch suddenly goes off in his head; the realization that the money, despite having been very large, is finite. Humans treat their life spans as that jackpot, spending and refusing to look at the balance because  they would not accept  that it is finite. That is what the good book meant when he says teach us to number our days- in other words, teach us to place a figure on our expected number of days on earth.

This in practical terms means facing the uncomfortable decision of giving a number to the days we think we have to spend on earth. The point is not really about the number- you can choose 120 years if that reduces your discomfort but once that number has been chosen it forces home the reality that your life is not everlasting , it places an upper limit on your earthly existence, brings into our horizon the reality of our finitude, then and only then can the other part of that scripture spring to life“..That we may apply our heart to wisdom”. Because the realization that you life has a certain limit- the acceptance of this knowledge to the conscious mind makes it possible for you to see that each day of your life is currency note drawn from a finite wad of money .

I challenge you to fight your natural aversion and superstition and number your days- mention the number of years you believe you have, of course this does not affect the actual number which may be less or more. What it will achieve will be mind-shifting, you would suddenly wake up to the truth that you have a finite number of days for all your dreams, expected experiences and dreams. That you don’t have an infinite amount of time to play living and with this new paradigm, each of your days become more valuable- you start giving deep thoughts to how you spend each moment. Sand is considered as nothing because we believe it supply is inexhaustible. Your days are not like sand. But you will treat is the same way until you elect to your consciousness at all times the truth that we are here only for a brief moment. Once we number our days-each can then be wisely spent.