Thirty Thousand Days

One can live at a low flame. Most people do. For some, life is an exercise in moderation (best china saved for special occasions), but given something like death, what does it matter if one looks foolish now and then, or tires too hard, or cares too deeply?

- Diane Ackerman

Does Thirty Thousand Days seem like a long time? It may, until you consider how many of those days you've already used up. You see, thirty thousand days is (roughly) the average number of days available to each human being living in Western society. In 2002, when we renamed our journal. We searched far and wide for a name that would reflect the underlying message of the publication and the ToDo Institute. One evening, as we pondered possible names, Linda, my wife, recalled the introductory essay to a wonderful book, How to Use Your Eyes (Routledge, 2002) by James Elkins. In that essay he says , "Before I sat down to write the chapter on grass, I had never really paid attention to it. I guess I thought I could always do that sometime in the future, when I am retired and have time to spare." Elkins goes on to calculate how many days might remain for his opportunity to pay attention to grass. He starts with 30,000 days, but by the time he factors out
the days he's used up (he's just over forty),
and bad weather days,
and seasons where the grass is either dead or not visible,
he finds that there aren't that many opportunities left.

In this mathematical moment, Elkins does what I hope this website will do. He inspires you to reflect on your life, to consider what it is you want to do, to not procrastinate, to pay attention to the world around you, and to wake up and find meaning and purpose in each moment of your life. So when you think of T h i r t y T h o u s a n d Days, we hope it will remind you to make wise choices about what you do with your time and your life.

And we'll share with you practical tools and ideas for moving forward and making your dreams reality. We'll inspire you. We'll support you. And if you learn something valuable along the way, please support others by sharing your wisdom in the "Comments" section below. So here's a toast to our 30,000 days. Let's live in a way that is worthy of the gift of Life. In the words of Gandhi, let us "be the change we wish to see in the world."

- Gregg Krech
Editor, Thirty Thousand Days