17 Dec 2025 · 0 min
Brian Johnson uses a fly's 28-day lifespan and the fact that 80 years is only 29,200 days to argue we should stop resisting life's difficulty and do the work. He draws on Stoic ideas about mortality and a Mary Oliver quote to make the case for living with purpose.
28 days.
13.8 billion years.
29,200 days.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic Plus One. 28 days. That's what I think to myself whenever I see a fly. Why? Because that's about how long the average fly will live. Then I think to myself in the big picture, that's about how long you have. Make the most of it. Now, one of the places I tend to see a flies in our kitchen as he, or is it she is trying to get out of the house through the big window above our sink that looks out into our backyard. Leaning up against that window is a framed quote from Mary Oliver that perfectly captures the spirit of my reflection. She tells us, tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? And that's what I was thinking about when one of our beloved coaches. Bless you, Marianne, asked me a question in our recent Soulforce Forge. Now, Marianne works with middle aged clients who are approaching and who are terrified by the fact that they are approaching death. She asked me how she could help her clients accept the beautiful inevitability of our death with grace and power so they can live the rest of their lives with the same amount of grace and power. Now, Marianne's a fan of both Stoicism and Michael Singer. So we talked about the idea of Memento Mori. We also talked about some Stoic wisdom Ward Farnsworth shares in the practicing Stoic, as you may recall from the one on Memento, Aristotle's river creatures. Farnsworth tells us that the Stoics like to talk about a little creature that lived by the river. The little creature was born in the morning and it dies by the end of the day. Now, the Stoics like to joke that if that creature that was going to die within the day happened to die a little earlier than normal, say right after noon, no one would make a big deal out of it as its life was so short in the first place. That'd be absurd, right? Well, the Stoics tell us that in the big picture, there is a very little difference between that little river creature's one day lifespan and our roughly 80 year lifespan. Remember, the universe is 13.8 billion years old. You know what one day is relative to that? 13.8 billion years. Here's the math. 13, 13.8 billion years is a little over 5 trillion days. One day out of 5 trillion days is 0.0 and a lot of zeros. 1, 985%. Trust me, a lot of zeros there. 80 years is 29,200 days. 29,200 days out of 5 trillion days is a lot of zeros. And then 5, 7971% the difference between our lifespan and that river creature's lifespan. Well, you've got to go pretty far out for that to even be considered a rounding error. All of which leads us to the point of today's one Life is short. Let's embrace the harsh reality of that fact. And let's embrace the harsh reality of the fact that life is also incredibly challenging, especially when we resist it. Then let's quit complaining about or ignoring the harsh facts of our reality and do the work. Turn up the heat. Hit your activation energy point. Show up like you mean it. Practice your philosophy. Because this isn't a dress rehearsal, hero. And before we go, one more question. Tell me, what is it you plan to do with this precious life of yours? It's time for you to give us all you've got today.
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