{"id":86,"date":"2018-10-14T23:39:56","date_gmt":"2018-10-14T22:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yuraperov.com\/wordpress\/?p=86"},"modified":"2019-03-31T20:45:30","modified_gmt":"2019-03-31T19:45:30","slug":"visualising-your-life-on-a-piece-of-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yuraperov.com\/site\/visualising-your-life-on-a-piece-of-paper\/","title":{"rendered":"Visualising Your Life on a Piece of Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This common expression, \u201cLife is\nshort\u201d, is quite popular. I remember when I was about 15 years old, I put a\nsticky note with phrase \u201cMoment\nMori\u201d<\/a> near my computer desk at my home with parents, the\ntranslation of which from Latin to English is \u201cRemember death\u201d. My intention\nthat time was purely to keep reminding myself how short life is and that we\nneed to act fast, and I hope I did not scare my relatives by that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to just reminding\nourselves of how limited the time and other resources, which we have to achieve\nwhat we need, there is a good exercise which helps to visualise it. I came up\nwith it myself, but I saw it in different places. I also heard it is used at\nHarvard Business School and most probably elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exercise is very simple. You just need to visualise or draw on a piece of paper a table with at least 90 rows and either 52 or 365 small columns plus one large column. The rows correspond to age, while the columns correspond to the weeks or days in a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

(NB.\nThe image of the table above is clickable.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, you can pencil the cells in\ndifferent colours or with different patterns. The colours and patterns might be\nchosen as you wish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first 10-15 rows are marking\nthe period in your life, over which you don\u2019t have a lot of control. You are\nnot necessarily aware of the vastness of the Universe, about the adult life.\nSome of us might have experienced some pain and huge suffering during that\nperiod, but even if that unfortunately happened, still more of awareness and\nmindfulness often will come afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next 5-10 years you might be full\nof energy, but still, often the skills to direct that energy are only being\ndeveloped. The \u201cmore mature\u201d \/ \u201colder\u201d (choose what you prefer) you become, the\nmore aware you can become, but then at some point, it is also the less energy\nyou usually have on your own. By the age of 40-50, a lot of us might have less\nenergy as well as some diseases might start affecting us. No doubt, it is still\npossible to be very active to the very end, but the older we become, the more\nresources and support we need for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By doing the exercise, you\nvisualise all your single, precise life on one piece of paper. You can mark\nusing stars some important events inside the main table, as well as mark main\ntheme(s) of each year in the last column on the right if you wish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The life does not have \u201cuniform\ndensity\u201d. There are work days and weekends. There are some holidays. There are\nperiods when you are very active, and there are times when you take some time\nto digest. There are periods of some depression as well as periods of very\nhappy times. There is \u201ca time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One point on this illustration is\nof the most importance. You can mark it with a bold, big star or any other\nsymbol of your choice. It is the now<\/em>. It is the exact moment of time\nwhen you are reading or listening to this, when you can look back to your past,\nbut most importantly, when you can act, as in right\nnow<\/em>. The\nfuture brings us a lot, and we shall plan and put some themes we would like to\nexplore and experience in the future (e.g. live a happy life with your family,\nsucceed, increase your wealth, and make it work for the sake of the others by\ninvesting), but the time to do everything possible and enjoy life is right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Copyright\n(excluding the purchased images), is by me. If you would like to share, please,\njust link to this page. Anything above does not constitute any advice, of\ncourse.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you very much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This common expression, \u201cLife is short\u201d, is quite popular. I remember when I was about 15 years old,…\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":89,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-86","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-success"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuraperov.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuraperov.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuraperov.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuraperov.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuraperov.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yuraperov.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90,"href":"https:\/\/yuraperov.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions\/90"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuraperov.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuraperov.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuraperov.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuraperov.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}