Wasting Your Life Away

Statistics are all useless. Ask any politician and they will tell you that statistics can be used to prove anything. And in the majority of cases the statistics never tell the true story.

If you looked around the Internet you can find a whole load of statistics about how much time you will spend throughout your lifetime doing various things. But when you actually add it all together you will have to either live to 200; or die knowing that the supposed statistics are averages based on nothing but lies.

In all the examples I'm going with the age of 70; simply because it was a statistic found on the Internet which stated it was the 'world average life expectancy'.

One statistic, on the Internet, suggests that the average person spends approximately 20 minutes a day on the toilet. Not too bad until you get to the end of your life and find that you wasted 353.88 days on the toilet.

20 minutes x 7 = 140 minutes x 52 = 7,280 minutes x 70 = 509,600 minutes (8493.33 hours or 353.88 days or 11.80 months)

That is right. Almost one year of your life is wasted in the toilet. In that time you will use about 1,400,000 sheets of toilet paper. With the average toilet roll holding 300 sheets you would use 4,666.66 rolls.

But before you head to the toilet you have to actually fill up on the good stuff so the body can digest it all.

A few websites suggested we all spend approximately one hour a day eating. Sixty minutes a day!

60 minutes x 7 = 420 minutes x 52 = 21,840 minutes x 70 = 1,528,800 minutes (25,480 hours or 1,061.66 days or 35.39 months)

Almost 3 years of your life will be spent eating.

OK. Now lets get the biggest waste of time out of the way. Sleeping. 7.2 hours a day. The 7.2 hours comes from the variation in sleep patterns from birth to death.

432 minutes x 7 = 3,024 minutes x 52 = 157,248 minutes x 70 = 11,007,360 minutes (183,456 hours or 7,644 days or 254.8 months)

21.23 years of your life is sleeping. Almost one-third of your life you know very little about because you slept through it.

Now you are all rested up it is time to work. Statistics don't take into account unemployment, layoffs, or anything else. Most presumed you started working at 21 and worked 40 hours a week until you retire at 65 years old. 44 years working.

40 hours x 52 = 2,080 hours x 44 = 91,520 hours (3,813.33 days or 127.11 months)

A little over 10.5 years working. If the federal minimum wage remained constant ($7.25) you would earn $663,520 in your working life. If the entire world population, 7.2 billion, all earned the same amount it would mean $4,777,344,000,000,000; $4.7 quadrillion.

So far, with using the toilet, eating, sleeping, and working 35 years of your life have gone. Half of your life is done!

Before you worry about work though you need to go to school. Although the average American graduating high school will spend 13 years in school there is little said about how long each day. On average it is 6 hours a day, not including homework and study, 5 days a week for 7 months of the year; because of various holidays and getting 3 months off for Summer.

6 hours x 5 = 30 hours x (4 x 7) = 840 hours x 13 = 10,920 hours.

Almost 11,000 hours! And by the time you are 25 you will have forgotten approximately 63% of what you learned.

48 years have been used up. That only leaves 22 years to fit everything else in. But before you get all excited - wait. Seriously, just wait. According to a study the average person will spend 5 years of their life waiting in line; and not all of that will be at the DMV.

You are now, according to various statistics, down to 17 years of your life unaccounted for. But before you think about partying for 17 years there are a few more things.

That food you ate for 3 years needed to be cooked. Approximately 72 minutes a day go into preparing and cooking the food.

72 minutes x 7 = 504 minutes x 52 = 26,208 minutes x 70 = 1,834,560 minutes (30,576 hours or 1,274 days or 42.46 months)

Sorry. 3.5 years spent cooking the food that will only take you 3 years to eat. But it has to come off.

You are left with 13.5 years to do what you want.

"98% of all statistics are made up." ~ Author unknown