Most People Don't Know How Much Lifetime They Have

Surveys in the U.S. and Europe show that most of us believe we will live longer than what the science-based predictions say. Thanks to optimism bias and mortality-aversion, we generally add ten years to our life-expectancy. Not surprisingly, these modified lifespan estimates come mostly from persons under 60.

Being younger and feeling healthier we boldly move through our lives without a clear sense of how much time remains. We plan futures and careers. We loosely think about retirement. We make short-term decisions about money. We arbitrarily choose relationships and approximate priorities.

But the single common demoninator that connects all of our challenging options is time. Our wins and losses, our right and wrong choices, correcting actions and mistakes, all consume portions of our limited time. This silent draining of our time remains abstract and stays mostly under the radar for those first sixty years.

We know time exists. We know it is limited. But it is just not very visible; not noticable beyond an extended horizon. We simply don't see it as the long, single, connected entity that it is. And too often this relates to how we navigate our (youthful) lives...   not coordinated, but as a collection of proximate lifetime events with little intention toward correlation.

Time can feel infinite -- until it doesn't

For most of a life, time doesn't feel urgent. Years pass --slowly at first-- then more quickly as we age. But without some structure, without a viewable representation of some kind, we find it easy to exaggerate the length of our lifespan and believe that our time will always be enough.

This preference can lead to delayed decisions, under-defined goals, vague plans and uncomfortable retirements. It's not because we don't care, more likely because we don't have a clear, adjustable frame of reference for our increasing lifespans. Without a viewable measurement, the other end of that far-away lifespan horizon will always seem to contain ample future time.

What changes when you can see your time?

When we can visualize a lifespan and learn to accept life-time as a spatial thing, something shifts. A year is no longer just a number, it becomes a space you can fill. The future becomes a bit more tangible and something you can imagine more clearly; even present time feels more meaningful.

A different way to think about your life

AThetaLife was created to make a lifetime something to measure. Not with a clock or smart-watch. These simply repeat themselves every 12 or 24 hours. Actually, more like a sandglass where the sand endlessly drains (like time) until there is no more. The archaic sandglass becomes the just-right metaphor of a draining lifetime.

With AThetaLife's interactive timeline you will create your evolving compendium of lifespan segments from your past to your estimated future. You will be encouraged to build with it, to interact with it year by year. You will reflect on where you've been, understand better where you are, and think more intentionally about what comes next.

This unique tool is not for predicting the future. Rather, it helps arrange our often disjointed life experiences into a more meaningful whole. From this, we are able to make better decisions in our present times that will enable more satisfying future times.

Of course the proper use of AThetaLife's timelines requires the disciplined entries of our lifetime exploits: the victories, disappointments, contributions and influences. All are preserved and organized into autobiographical notes to be valued by descendants for the contributions they make to the ongoing family lineage.