Yet another birthday (next Friday just in case you needed to know) is fast approaching and this always gets me thinking …. ‘Am I doing the things I wanted to do?’ ‘What is it that I always wanted to achieve, do, be, have, or experience?’
It’s this time that you review the ‘Things I’ve always wanted to experience list?’ The ‘Top 100 before I kick the bucket list’. The reality is that there are not 100 things on my list, I cut it back to doing 10 things each year that I have always wanted to do.. some get carried forward.
But what if instead of being halfway through my life – I was in fact only 4% through my life.
I am just back from a conference in India – and there I met a futurist, Rohit Talwar who had some very interesting things to say. And if some of his ideas could be true – this will have huge impacts on business and government policy.
Those born in the 50s can expect to live beyond 90, but those born in the 60s can expect to be 100 (the Queen is going to be very busy writing letters). By 2020 those over 50 will outnumber the young and they will be increasingly wealthy.
Retiring at 60 takes on a whole new meaning (imagine retiring and having half your life left to live…)
Dr Aubrey de Grey a Cambridge Genetics believes that with the current rate of technology development it could be possible for people to live to be 500 or 1000. In fact “the first person to live to 1000 might be 60 already.” He argues
But of course there are no guarantees of course – so I plan to live each day as if it the only day I have, and I am on to my list.
Frank Balint says
Hi Naomi
1000 more birthdays….quite a concept, and I would be interested to know how many of us, given the choice, would ‘want’ another 1000. Don’t get me wrong, I love life, it is the best gift I have ever been given, and there is the point….gift, we are all given the gift of life, but do most of us know what to do with it, to make the most of it?
Personally speaking, I continue to challenge myself by looking for more ‘new’ things to do, but knowing that the older I get, the less likely I am to do some things…therefore, if I knew there were more exciting things for me to experience once retired, then it would make the thought of getting old, exciting…
So, we get old, we become less mobile and able, but as you say, we could get more time to spend, so what "exciting" things can we plan for, what can we look forward to doing?
"hey granny, happy 120th, here is your experience of a life time, the one you have been planning for…have fun!"