They say that your school years are the best years of your life, but those years are certainly not the longest. In fact, the amount of time the typical American spends surviving middle school and searching for a lifelong partner seem like mere instants compared to the length of an entire human life. What would happen if we stopped thinking of our early years as golden years and instead started thinking of our entire lives as ripe with opportunities? This chart by Wait But Why might help you put your life into perspective.
In the chart below, each square represents a week in the life of a typical American through 90 years of age. Weeks are color-coded by time of life like early years, high school years and retirement age; notes point out milestones like legal driving age, the average week when a woman has her first child and the average length of a marriage that ends in divorce.
The chart shows that the vast majority of our weeks are spent navigating our careers. What can we do to make those weeks count?
Featured image by John Liu