Weeks to Live
“Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone—those that are now, and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river: the “what” is in constant flux, the “why” has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what’s right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us—a chasm whose depths we cannot see.”
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Why are you here?
Really—what’s your purpose?
Do you have daily reminders when life isn’t going smooth?
I once heard that the average human life spans 4,000 weeks.
That’s about 76 summers.
How many do you have left?
For me, that number could be twenty.
When I reframe my life through this lens, it stuns me a bit and challenges what I assume to be true.
Reframing is incredibly potent for any sticky situation. .
It allows more space to consider that the problem I’m fixating on might not actually be the problem.
That the way I see things isn’t the only way.
Even this morning, walking my dog, I caught myself in a negative thought loop. I felt it—shoulder tense, head aching. I stopped and said to myself:
"I have no idea how today is going to go."
Immediately, my body shifted. My shoulder eased. My breath deepened. My spine straightened.
For you, what if noticing the story you’re telling—and the physical symptoms attached to it—allowed you to step back and see more possibilities?
On a client call recently, we landed on this: A physical sensation of spaciousness in the chest was the indicator to move forward on a decision. She gave notice on a project that day.
Not logic. Not emotion. But what the body knew.
Not happiness or even peace—but a physical knowing guiding the next step.
The body speaks in sensation.
The question is: Are you listening?
And, listening is a basic 101 skill, yet remains unpracticed by so many.
How you’re listening and interpreting what you’re hearing is a whole other level of humaning to consider.
More on that next time.
