Fun time left

Averages are a point of reference that we tend to gravitate towards when they support something we believe to be true.  However, when the average isn’t what we want to hear, we’ll easily discredit it or begin a discourse how it doesn’t apply to us.

Case in point is a new report from our “friends” at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announcing that for the third year in a row, the average life expectancy for a newborn is 78.8 years.

I’ll easily dismiss this news as being not applicable to me because I’m not a newborn.

See!  I told you so.

For those of you who want to read the fine print, click this link below:  

Mortality in the United States, 2014 - NCHS Data Brief ■ No. 229 ■ December 2015

A closer look at this report, however, provides the latest life expectancy statistics at different ages for males and females.  Studying this information reveals to me that a 65-year old male has a now life expectancy of 17.9 years.

Yikes!  That’s a little closer to home.

How time flies when we’re having fun and this little study tells this middle-aged man there may only be about two decades of fun time left. 

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum