Your best days are behind you. Yes, you.

On my gardener neighbour, Tim Urban's tail end, and the finiteness of our relationships.

Hi guys,

Hope you are doing well. I’m doing okay, Alhamdulillah.

As we approach the final ten nights of the blessed month of Ramadan, I pray Allah eases all our affairs and answers our prayers. Oloun a gbadura wa. Amin.

Every day, I see an old man ‘gardening’. He is some five minutes away from my apartment and I walk past that path at least once every day. He appears to be a very weird man, about 75 years old if I had to guess. And I have seen him there at the oddest of times, from 5:30 am till 10 pm.

Random picture on the internet - Image from Flickr

I say ‘gardening’ because it is not a garden. It is simply a walkway by the side of the road. And in the small space between the walkway and the wall of a building, there is 4 feet by 50 feet stretch of ‘flowers’. Again, I say ‘flowers’ because what he tends to looks nothing like flowers. They seem more like…like…scattered shrubs? Weeds? Baby plants? Herbs?

And you know how plants x flowers x gardens tend to look beautiful? Well, these ones don’t. I walk past him every time confused, asking myself what on earth he is doing. Sometimes, he appears to be uprooting the grass from one end of the stretch and moving them to the other. Other times, he is holding a broom and packer as he tends to them.

The last time I saw him, he was shirtless but had on shorts, slippers, and had a cutlass in one hand as he stared at his plants. Is he doing some form of agriculture? Is he a horticulturist? Is he just mad?

But he was wearing a mask. Will a mad man bother to wear a mask?

I really don’t know. I hope to figure out what he’s doing over the next few months before I become the crazy one. 😅

My guess is many of you are familiar with the story of Noah (Prophet Nuh, AS), who according to the biblical (and Quranic) tradition preached to his people for several years to no response. Eventually, he was inspired to build an ark for transporting his people (+ animals) in preparation for a flood.

But initially, the people really did think he was crazy.

إِنْ هُوَ إِلَّا رَجُلٌۢ بِهِۦ جِنَّةٌۭ فَتَرَبَّصُوا۟ بِهِۦ حَتَّىٰ حِينٍۢ

“He is not but a man possessed with madness, so wait concerning him for a time.” - 23:25

Biblical and Quranic traditions aside, many times we have seen people in sport, business, academic, or other pursuits engage in actions that are really difficult to rationalize. Those of us from the outside looking in simply think their actions are too ‘abnormal’ to succeed or too ‘inconsequential’ to make a difference.

But once in a while, their work bears fruit and we are forced to rescind our statements. Perhaps this is the case. Perhaps I’m just too uninformed to appreciate what my horticulturist ‘neighbor’ is doing. Maybe I will update this post when I see the light.

Or maybe he’s just crazy. 😂 😂

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Inspired by Tim Urban’s tail end in Wait But Why, today I am thinking about the finiteness of life. If Oghena or Dayo were here, they would say, ‘Hameed has started with talking about death again.’ 😂

But this one is not even about death. It’s more about the finiteness of life. Even more specifically, the finiteness of our relationships and experiences.

What do I mean?

Tim Urban argues that once you reach your thirties, you are at the tail end of many of the ‘good’ things of life, without even realizing it. So in my attempt to validate his thoughts, let us apply them to a scenario most people can relate with.

Days spent with parents

Let us define days spent with parents as the number of in-person (not virtual) days that will be spent (not brief visiting) together in the same house with your parents.

Now, let’s assume that a young person from birth until the age of 17 spends 90% of their days ‘living’ with their parents. Going out to school and returning home on the same day still counts as a day spent ‘with parents’.

And I agree that 90% is subjective - maybe 100% for ages 0 to 10, and 40% for 11 to 17 if you went to a boarding school. Or still, 100% if you were in a day school. It doesn’t matter really, I think a 90% average is fair over the entirety of that time period.

So, 90% of 17 years = 0.9 x 17 x 365 = 5584.5. Let’s say 5585 days.

Now, let’s assume that you are/were in the university from 18 to 22. Over these 5 years, you visit home one weekend per month for 9 months and spend the remaining 3 months of holidays at home 90% of the time.

Again, these numbers are subjective. Someone schooling in a different state or country may not visit one weekend per month, while someone schooling in the same city as home might even continue to live with their parents.

We can assume one weekend per month is 3 days out of 30 so roughly 10%.

Now, 10% of 9 months = 0.1 x 30 x 9 = 27

And 90% of 3 months = 0.9 x 30 x 3 = 81

Over 5 years of university, this comes to (27 + 81) x 5 = 540 days.

If your head is already spinning from the math, please bear with me.

Assuming you move out of home and begin a job shortly after uni, things become more interesting. We need to make some more assumptions. Let’s assume your parents are about 30 years older than you and will die at about age 70.

Did you just say they will not die in Jesus name? 😂 😂

70 is a fair number nauu given that Nigeria’s life expectancy is 54.33.

You’re still not happy?

Okay, sorry.

But if they pass away at 70, you will probably be around 40 years old. So, how often will you ‘live’ with your parents from 23 to 40?

Yet another assumption. Let’s assume you’re a nice son/daughter that visits and spends the whole day on the last Sunday of every month. In addition, you go for celebrations like Easter or Sallah, coming to about 5 days of family festivities per annum.

So, one Sunday per month = 1 x 12 = 12 days, and 12 + 5 days of festivities = 17 days per annum.

Seeing as you will do this for 18 years, 17 x 18 = 306 days.

Now, let us sum up all the days you will ‘spend with’ your parents.

5585 days (ages 0 to 17) + 540 days (university) + 306 days (23 till 40) = 6431 days.

Based on our assumptions so far, you will spend about 6,431 days interacting face-to-face with your parents over your lifetime.

Assuming you are 23 years old (choosing this because the calculation is easier), you have 306 days to go. This means you have already spent 6125 days.

Do you know what this means?

95.24% of all the time you will spend with your parents in person has already passed.

It is a shocking realization. Even I writing this did not know for sure what the number would come to. You mean I’m definitely in the last 5% of all the in-person time I will with my parents? All the jokes? Arguments? Banter? Disappointments? Surprises? Errands? Seeking advice? Complaints? Laughter? Stories from the past?

Wow.

This is exactly Tim’s argument. Without even realizing it, we are at the tail end of some of the ‘good things’ of life.

Now you might conclude that this is depressing news. But I don’t think so. It’s just factual. Life is finite, and the stage you are at determines what % of Xyz you have ahead of you.

You may decide to make a similar analysis for the number of times you will eat dodo, the number of times you will see your best friends or the number of times you will play football.

For some of them, you may breathe a sigh of relief. Whew, there’s still quite a lot to look forward to. For the others, you might come to the realization that the bulk of it is behind you and comfort yourself with memories.

The main takeaway here is to treasure what little time we have left. Spend a bit more time with the people you love. Say the things you haven’t said. Ask the questions you haven’t asked before. Sooner rather than later, the opportunity will be gone.

But there is one more thing to keep in mind.

You are also at the early dawn

Just as you are at the tail end of some of the most pleasant memories and relationships of your life, you are also at the very beginning of many others. Sticking with the assumption that you are in your twenties, you will likely experience a lot (more) of the following.

The number of dinners with your spouse. The number of laughters with your children. The number of times someone will address you as ‘Daddy’ or ‘Mummy’. The number of vacations you will go on. The number of promotions you will receive. And on and on and on.

Yes, very many of your ‘good’ days are behind you. But in disagreement with my click-bait title, there are still many more ahead.

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If you found this newsletter useful, please share it with your friends. Have them read it and subscribe. I like to share personal stories and life lessons as I learn. They will be super random, but common themes will include business, personal development, human relationships, and Islam.

Gracias, and see you around.

Hameed

** Jara content:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where …” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

—Lewis Caroll, Alice in Wonderland