Chapter 12 - HOME BASE
…Whenever my life may lack meaning, I return to Home Base to find that meaning. It is there that I re-orchestrate the meaning and purpose of my life. Home Base is a metaphorical place I realized into being. It represents the paradigm, frame of mind and viewpoint on my life and its circumstances.
It is there I asked how much time I had in my life and what would be important without restrictions. How was my time to be apportioned? Could I control it?...
...Here is some rough arithmetic to put things in perspective - to see how much time was allotted to, or already spent doing the usual things people do in their lives. This is what I came up with:
Assume a human being might live an average of 70 years - that’s approximately 613,000 hours of life – not too bad you might suppose. We can deduct from that: an average of 202,000 ‘no longer usable hours’, which includes 6,600 twenty-four hour days devoted to reaching legal adulthood at age 18 and 1,800 twenty-four hour days enjoying or doddering away in some form of retirement - beginning maybe at age 65.
Forty-seven years remain, or 411,000 hours. Deduct 134,000 hours of time for weekends, vacations, and holidays that might be devoted to pure leisure, relaxation, and personal chores. Approximately 277,000 hours of lifetime remains to be used as best as possible hopefully to our benefit. Of that, it is said that 8 hours a day of sleep is required for good health - or 92,000 hours. Working an 8 hour day job reduces it by another 93,000 hours. The remaining 8 hours of the 24 hour day, or 92,000 hours of lifetime, is where we change the routine, make a difference and improve our lot.
On the other hand, we can waste the greater percentage of that portion of time by relieving the stress and hardships of our daily routine by occupying ourselves with whatever entertaining diversions, we believe might help – only to relive again, on a following day, that quiet desperation that keeps so many of us in an overwhelming and stressed-out enslavement.
This analysis must sound like a Twilight Zone movie. I suppose others could prorate their lifetime differently; however, the exactness of this analysis is not important, nor was it intended to sadden or depress anyone because they might believe they have wasted their life and run out time. Nothing is ever a waste of time. Every minute we spend breathing and doing what we do, brings us closer to our Home Base - to that place where it all really matters, where we have the opportunity to explore the world and start fresh and anew, every time we feel like it; and Home Base is always as perfect as perfect can be…
