13 Nov Life: #thirty6pt2m

Life. 

36.2 million. 

What do life and the number 36.2M (million) have in common? 

Is it the number of people we will encounter? Is it the number of cells that make up a hair follicle? 

What if I told you that your life would contain a total of 36.2M minutes? 

Would you live life differently if you knew you only had a certain amount of time? 

Would you make different choices? Would you be more present? Would you focus on something different? Would you live to work or work to live? 

November 6th marks the 7 year anniversary of my father’s death. 

As part of my own grieving process, a few years ago I actually calculated the number of minutes my father lived. 69 years + 10 days + a few hours + a few minutes. That number? Just slightly over 36.2 million minutes. #thirty6pt2m

It then struck. 

Life. 

Life is finite. Life has a beginning and an end. We are born and at some point in time, we die. 

The only thing that matters is what we do and how we use those moments during our journey called life. 

For me personally, this has allowed me to reframe my life. 

I share similar DNA with my father. While our context of life is different, if I make an assumption that our lives take a similar trajectory, it means that I have used up over half of my minutes. 

As I reflect on those minutes, have I used them wisely? Have I made each moment matter? Have I used those moments to make an impact? To make a change? To right a wrong? To continue taking a step forward in challenging the status quo and helping us take back medicine? 

Reframing has been powerful for me. 

Reminding myself that I have one life to live.

With each minute there is a new moment. A moment that only comes once in a lifetime. A moment that brings a new decision.  A decision between fear or love. A decision that has meaning at that very moment. A decision that will impact my life 2 minutes later, 2 hours later, 2 days later, 2 weeks later, 2 months later, 2 years later, and beyond. 

A decision I make at the N of 1 will send ripples throughout my entire life. It will send ripples into the lives of those I encounter during my journey. 

As Henry David Thoreau wrote, “I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow of life…”

This is the power of N of 1. 

Make every moment matter. 

Lead with love. 

Suck the marrow of life, at the N of 1. 

Please email your comments, thoughts, questions, or ideas to me directly at cancergeek@gmail.com. You can also find me on Twitter and Instagram.

~Cancergeek