Blog by: Lata Advani Viseu

So if only I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save everyday ’til eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you
And I’d save everyday like a treasure and then
Again and again I’d spend them with you (spend them with you)
Time in a Bottle – Jim Croce

The other day my sister and I were joking about how many weekends we possibly had remaining in life and, that got me thinking about the story of 3900 Saturdays.

If a person lives to 75 years, that is the number of Saturdays (3,900) they have in total. In this story, the man was 50 years old, so he bought 1,300 marbles, equivalent to the total number of Saturdays remaining for him and put them in a clear jar. Every Saturday he removed one marble and as he watched the marbles disappear, it became clear to him what he needed to focus on and what was important to him.

If you are 30 years old, you have around 2,340 Saturdays left. If you are 40 years old, you have 1,820 Saturdays remaining. If you are 50 years old, you have 1,300 Saturdays left and if you are 60 years old, you have 780 Saturdays left. However, if you have great genes, you probably have many more Saturdays left to enjoy.

When you look at life this way, you realize that at the end of each year you have 52 Saturdays less and the number of Saturdays remaining get fewer by the number. That is when you begin to realize that every day must be enjoyed and lived to the fullest whether it is a Monday or a Saturday.

Why wait for a Friday or Saturday night to meet up with friends or go for a movie? Do what you love when you want instead of waiting for the weekend. Pre-pandemic, many times we would go for movies during the week so that it did not feel like we had to wait for the weekend to enjoy the things we liked doing.

Some simple things you can do to make life more interesting and have something to look forward to:

• Make a bucket list of small and big things you want to do or experience
• Make a list of places you want to visit (whether they are short road trips or bigger vacations)
• Join a Meetup group (many are online now) and connect with like-minded people (find your tribe)
• Go for walks in nature after work with a friend or neighbour or listen to a podcast
• Put on your headphones and dance if you don’t have anywhere to go
• Set up video calls with friends and family if you can’t see them in person
• Just have fun, enjoy life instead of accumulating material things that tie you down
• Find a job that does not feel like work if possible
• Let go of guilt, shame and fears. Forgive yourself. Each new day is a chance to start fresh and do better

You cannot change the past and you can only make your future better by living your best life in the present.

Spend time with people that lift you up and do things that bring you joy or you will find that the marbles will quickly begin to diminish from the glass jar of life.

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” – Andy Warhol

“It’s not that we have little time, but more that we waste a good deal of it.” – Seneca

“Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.” – John Lennon

“It’s being here now that’s important. There’s no past and there’s no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can’t relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don’t know if there is one.” – George Harrison

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