When things are equal but not the same

After reading the Tim Urban article from last week's email, a friend replied and asked how I felt having gone through the exercise of calculating how much remaining time I had with my kids. Did it lead to clarity? Dread? Ambivalence? None of the above? All of the above? For the second week in a row, I found my answer in math. 

<optional sidebar> Do you ever feel like you know a basic concept really well, but when you try to explain it you realize how many holes and assumptions exist in your knowledge? In sitting down to write this, I realized I don't have as good an understanding of how equality works (but I'm going to try to make my point anyway). </optional sidebar>

Both the left and the right side of the following equation are equal: 

2 + 2 = 3 + 1

When you go through the operation of adding 2 to 2 and 3 to 1, you get 4 for both. Since 4=4, 2+2 and 3+1 are equal. Numbers are just an abstract representation of things though, they have no meaning until you know what they are numbering. I'll illustrate with a few examples. 
  • Using the numbers above, a family with 2 parents and 2 kids is not the same as a family with 1 parent and 3 kids (or 3 parents and 1 kid!). Each has a house with an equal number of people (4), but the families are not the same.
  • Jill has a copy of each of the 13 studio albums released by The Beatles, and Jack has 13 copies of The Best of Ricky Martin. Equal number of albums, but not the same. 
  • Hank has 50 x $1 bills, and Bobby has 50 x $100 bills. They both have 50 seemingly identical pieces of paper, but they are not the same. If this one seems farfetched, it's  because you are hung up thinking money has intrinsic value. To remedy this, offer a three year old the choice of 10 x $1 bills or 1 x $100 bill. 
This divide between the concepts of equality and sameness is where my reply to my friend comes in. Calculating the number of hours left is a valuable jolt to your system, but it doesn't tell you what to do next. Understanding that each of those hours is equal but not the same, though, is incredibly empowering. Instead of being paralyzed by the dwindling count of hours, it shows that you have the agency to increase the value of the remaining time by improving the quality. It is much easier to make the existing hours better* than to try to make more of them. 

*Note: In the case of kids, I'm not advocating that you devote 100% of your attention to your kids for every remaining hour you have with them. If the quarantine has taught me anything it's that this is impossible and isn't healthy for you or your children. Please send help.

A Few Hours

The first time I read Tim Urban's article The Tail End, I was close to tears by the end. Go read it if you haven't - his way of thinking and articulating heavy subject matter in a simple, accessible way makes it worth the read. The gist of this particular article is that by the time you reach your 30s, you've likely spent 95+% of all the time you'll ever spend with your parents. I had to run the numbers for myself. 

Age 3.5 = 21.85% (daughter's current age)
Age 5.5 = 34.33% (son's current age)
Age 12 = 74.91%
Age 18 = 96.64%

Since becoming a parent I've heard the cliche "the days are long but the years are short" a number of times, and now here it was laid out like a mathematical proof.  

The new world of social distancing and self-isolation changes the numbers. My wife and I are working from home and splitting the our day into 5 hour shifts of childcare and uninterrupted work. Now our prior estimate for any weekday of 4 hours a day (1.5 in the morning and 2.5 in the evening) increases by an extra 5 hours per weekday to 9 hours per weekday. This may not seem like much. Or it might seem like way too much if you also have kids, but let's recalculate the next few weeks. An extra 5 hours per weekday 5 days a week is 100 hours per month, or 0.24% of my total estimated lifetime hours with my kids. A quarter of a percent per month! The number can seem like so little and also so much. I won't be able to ask for any extra hours at the end, so I'm going to do my best to cherish these extra ones and treat them like the gift they are.