Meditações - the undistinguished life of an industrialized man in an industrialized nation...

BRIAN REED: John once sent me an essay he wrote called "Worthwhile Life Defined" in which he breaks down exactly how much meaningful time there is in one life. He begins, quote, "When one considers that the undistinguished life of an industrialized man in an industrialized nation consists of about 25,000 days, and that about 33% to 38% of those days are spent in slumber."

And then he runs through a bunch of calculations, shaving off time for sleep, to come up with the total number of waking hour days. Then shaving off time at work, time commuting, time spent on family commitments, time spent convalescing when you get older. In the end he concludes, "The average industrialized man with 25,000 days on this planet may easily secure only about 4,500 waking hour days of beneficial life. That's a quarter of your life, if you're lucky," John says. "A quarter of your life during which the average person can pursue matters that are meaningful to them."

When I first read the title of this essay, "Worthwhile Life Defined," I figured John would lay out a vision of what such a life would look like—what you needed to do and accomplish to make your life worthwhile. But he doesn't do that here. Instead of defining a worthwhile life, he defines the amount of time one has in which to achieve a worthwhile life.

His calculation is based on the assumption that we will live to 68 years old. John, of course, cut his own life far short of that. He allocated himself even less time. So did he do it? Did John live a worthwhile life as he defined it? He doesn't give an answer in this essay, but by the time he reached the last of his waking hour days, John had formed an opinion on it. John did have an answer to that question at the end.

Sarah Koenig