Daily Archives: April 18, 2012

Losing Marbles

I received a chain email from a friend this morning. I usually read and delete, since I really don’t like to send along “forwards”. This one actually gave me pause. It was about a man who had calculated the average amount of Saturdays in the average lifespan. In 75 years, you have 3,900 Saturdays (75×52= 3,900). That is the average amount of Saturdays a human being has to enjoy. Admittedly, when that human is very young, it has no concept of “enjoying a Saturday”, but then again that same human has only the responsibility to investigate his or her environment, so it is enjoying pretty much every single day of the week. The man went on to tell of how he only had 1,000 Saturdays left to enjoy, so he went out and bought 1,000 marbles. Every Saturday he would take a marble, and throw it away.

By throwing the marble away, he could see Time running, and focus on what is most important in his life. There’s nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.

By my calculations, I have 1,545 Saturdays left on this Big Blue Marble™. Now, I’m not going out to buy a bunch of marbles. If I did, the kids would end up playing with them. But I will concentrate on enjoying my Saturdays with my family, while keeping a journal of how I spent each one. That way, when I finish the 1,545th entry, I can then appreciate the little extra time I have been gifted on this Earth that much more 🙂