There’s something different about knowing the estimated date of my death. We all know our current age and our average lifespans. We can do the math. But to see the actual date……hits you harder in the gut.

I chanced upon Population.io today. It’s a fascinating data visualisation project by World Data Lab. It asks: “What’s my place in the world population? How long will I live?” You key in your date of birth, and it spits out a bunch of cool visuals about mortality, age and population data in a way that’s relevant to your birth date. 

I was quite surprised to find out that I belong to the older half of the world’s population with 64% younger than me, but in my country (Singapore), I belong to the younger half, with 47% younger than me. It’s also cool to know that I am the 4,906,139,049 person alive on the planet today. But the real kicker was reading this:

We estimate that you will live until 18 Apr 2058 if you were an average world citizen. Whereas in Singapore it would be until 14 Feb 2066. 

46.6years of life left in Singapore. We estimate you will live until age 86.6 years on 14 Feb 2066.

Wow. Needed a few seconds to take that in.

I know I’m 40 years old. I know I’m roughly half way through this magic carpet ride called life. Yet, seeing the date was way more powerful than I expected. Some might feel it’s all doom and gloom, but I actually like it. Yes, there’s a sense of urgency and anxiety from knowing the date, but more of the good kind. The fact is, none of us are getting out of this alive. So might as well use the deadline (literally!) as a positive force, as a good sort of impatience.  

Impatience at staying in toxic situations, places and people. Impatience at living my life to other people’s agendas. Impatience at postponing my dream life one more day, because there’s always another. Until there isn’t.  

I’m likely to die on 14 Feb 2066. Let that be burned into my mind, so that I may always be impatient at life like my hair is on fire.