“Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door. ” 

    Coco Chanel

The YouTube video “The Time You Have in Jelly Beans” has more than four million views and rightly so. The author, Zefrank 1, demonstrates visually how we spend time using jelly beans and the voice of Sad Cat Diary Guy explains the math. The message is effectively communicated, and the end poses provoking questions:

• What are you doing with your time?
• How much time do you have left?
• What if you had half that amount?
• What will you do with it?
• What are you going to do today?

In order to answer the questions I did the math, you know multiplication, division and percentages, and it is complicated for Baby Boomers. The statistics are based on a life expectancy of 79 years or 28,835 jellybeans, minus 5,475 jelly beans for the formative years, leaving 23,360 jelly beans to divvy up among must do activities.  This is the breakdown. 

Activity                                   Jelly Beans                    Percentage of time

Sleeping                                  8,477                                      36%

Work                                        3,202                                     13%

TV Watching                            2,676                                     11%

Food, etc                                  1,635                                        6%

Chores                                       1,576                                       6%

Community Service                     720                                        3%

Attending others                           564                                       2%

Personal Care                                671                                       2%

These activities account for 83% of our time, leaving 3,839 beans to spend as we like. The message is clear; it is not a lot of jelly beans so spend them carefully.

Most Baby Boomers have about 5,110 jelly beans left; many are retired, so add the 13% previously allocated to work, to the 17% already designated to the area of do what you like, and life looks exciting, until you do the math.

It is not as difficult as the “New Math” of the 1980’s but it is tricky and there is a learning curve. Here is an example:

Retired, Dave has 5,110 jellybeans left, of which he plans to use 1533 for fun. He is invited to play pickle ball, and with the first serve falls, shatters his hip, and undergoes surgery. He now has a metal pin. How many jellybeans does Dave have remaining for leisure activities?

Please leave your answer in the comment section.

                                                                                          . . . . just saying 

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