“We get 38 million heartbeats.
Only 10 million of them are ours to truly live.”
We walk around believing time is abundant.
That there’s always more.
We live under the illusion that time is abundant.
But when we strip away the noise, what you’re left with is terrifyingly finite.
We are Given 38.4 Million Minutes
That’s the average number of minutes in a human life based on global life expectancy (about 73 years).
Seems like a lot, right?
But let’s unpack that.
Where Our Time Actually Goes
1. Childhood & Old Age
The first 18 and last 8-10 years are mostly spent learning how to live or preparing to leave.
Unproductive years removed: 26
Minutes lost: 13.6 million
Remaining: 24.7 million
2. Sleep
8 hours per day = 1/3 of our time.
We spend a third of our lives sleeping.
Minutes lost to sleep: 8.25 million
Remaining: 16.45 million
3. Daily Chores & Commute
Brushing, bathing, eating, commuting, fixing broken bulbs, replying to emails no one reads…
Approx. 4 hours/day = 4.12 million minutes
Remaining: 12.33 million
4. Mindless Consumption
Let’s be generous: just 2 hours a day for social media, YouTube, scrolling, and news doom.
Lost to passive consumption: 2.06 million minutes
Remaining: 10.27 million
So What Do We Actually Get?
Only 10.3 million minutes in our entire life are genuinely available for:
Creative work
Soulful relationships
Building something meaningful
Meditation and growth
Loving, learning, becoming
That’s just 27% of our life.
“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.”
— William Penn
The SoulTech Take
Most people wake up to this math too late.
We waste time because time feels infinite.
We say yes to everything because we don’t know what really matters.
We scroll because it’s easier than facing the stillness of now.
We build careers.
We chase titles.
We post stories.
But the deeper story is this:
You weren’t born to manage time.
You were born to feel it.
To invest it.
To become something inside of it.
Realize that the value of time is not in its duration, but in its depth.
But somewhere between the dopamine loops and productivity hacks, we forgot.
We don’t need more time.
We need more meaning per minute.
What To Do With This Soulful Insight
Audit your time like your bank account. Every scroll is a withdrawal.
Buy back your minutes. Hire, automate, say no.
Design your day around high-impact hours. That’s where your legacy lives.
Meditate daily. Reclaim your mind from noise.
Create more than you consume. The world doesn’t need another viewer. It needs a voice.
“Don’t count every hour in the day, make every hour in the day count.”
— Anonymous
A Real-Life Reminder
Recently, I waited 2.5 hours for someone who had committed to meet me.
No apology. No explanation.
I kept thinking, “It’s fine, I can catch up on emails, reflect, or read.”
But deep down, I knew what I was really doing:
Wasting minutes I’ll never get back.
That’s 150 precious minutes.
150 chances to grow, love, build, rest, or just breathe.
Gone — and for what?
When someone wastes your time, they are not just being careless —
they are stealing from your only non-renewable asset.
What About AI?
AI won’t save our souls, but it can help us reclaim our time.
When used intentionally, it becomes a time-liberation tool:
Writes drafts so you can focus on ideas
Automates chores so you can create
Filters noise so you can think
Saves minutes - one micro-decision at a time
But here’s the catch:
AI only amplifies what you already value.
Use it mindlessly, and it’ll waste time faster than you ever could.
Use it mindfully, and it can buy you back the most precious thing: your minutes.
A Final Reflection
If you only have 10 million usable minutes, how many of them have you already spent reacting instead of creating?
Scrolling instead of being still?
Running instead of arriving?
You don’t need more hours in the day.
You need to own the ones that are already yours.
TL;DR:
You live ~38 million minutes.
Only ~10 million are truly yours to use with intention.
The rest? Lost to sleep, distraction, and daily maintenance.
AI isn’t the answer — you are. But it’s a damn good ally if you let it help.
“Your time is limited. Your soul is not.
Spend wisely.”
