My son asked me to play basketball with him last summer. I said I was busy. I don’t remember what I was doing.
A few weeks later, I was working on one of my life visualization tools — the kind that maps your remaining time in weeks or years — and I typed in my son’s age almost by accident.
The output stopped me.
The Calculation I Didn’t Want to Do
Here’s the math I ran, and you can run it too.
My son is 13. He’ll probably leave home around 18 or 19 for university or work. That’s roughly 5 or 6 summers left where we’re in the same house, with unstructured time together.
Five summers.
Not five hundred. Not fifty. Five.
And one of those summers, he’ll have a part-time job, or a girlfriend, or a trip with friends. So maybe four where he’s actually available. Maybe three where he actually wants to hang out with his dad.
I’ve already used maybe forty summers with him. I might have three left.
Why the Number Hits Different When You Write It Down
I knew, in the abstract, that my son would grow up. Every parent knows this. People say it constantly: it goes so fast, enjoy every moment.
But knowing it abstractly and seeing the number — 3 summers — are completely different experiences.
The abstract version doesn’t change behavior. The number does.
This is what I’ve learned building life visualization tools: the human brain is surprisingly bad at processing vague time. “He’ll be gone soon” produces mild wistfulness. “You have 3 summers left” produces something closer to action.
I Built a Tool Because I Needed to See It
After I ran that calculation, I went back to the life visualization tool I’d been building and added a specific feature: a “remaining time with someone you love” calculator.
You enter:
- The other person’s current age
- The age when your time together will change significantly (they leave home, you move, they pass away, your relationship changes)
- How many days per year you realistically spend together
It gives you a number. A real number. Not a vague “treasure every moment.” A specific count of the days you have left.
Some people find this depressing. I find it clarifying.
The basketball game I missed — that was one afternoon out of maybe 200 remaining afternoons. It doesn’t sound like much. But 200 is the ceiling. Some of those 200 will be travel, illness, bad moods, conflicting schedules.
The real number of “good afternoons where we could play basketball and both be in the right headspace” might be 40.
I missed one of forty.
What Changed After I Ran the Numbers
I don’t want to oversell this. I didn’t immediately become a perfect present father who never checks his phone. Life doesn’t work like that.
But a few things shifted:
I stopped treating “later” as infinite. When he asks me to do something now, “later” used to mean “eventually, at some vague future point.” Now “later” means “one of approximately 40 remaining chances.” That’s a different calculation.
I started saying yes to the inconvenient things. Not the convenient things — those were always easy. The inconvenient things: the late-night question, the bad-timing request, the thing I’d rather skip.
I started tracking it loosely. Not in an obsessive way. But I keep a rough count of the good days. Not to optimize them. Just to feel them as what they are: numbered.
The Uncomfortable Realization About My Own Parents
After I built the tool and ran the numbers on my son, I ran them on myself.
My parents are in their late sixties. We live in different cities. I see them maybe once or twice a year, plus one longer visit.
That’s roughly 3–4 meaningful visits per year, for maybe 15–20 more years before health or distance makes visits harder.
60 visits. Maybe 80 on the high end.
I’ve already used hundreds of visits with them. I might have sixty left.
I called my mother the day I ran that number. Not for any particular reason. Just because the number made me want to hear her voice.
How to Run This Calculation Yourself
You don’t need my tool to do this. You need:
1. The other person’s current age and the age at which your time together changes 2. Days per year you realistically spend with them (be honest — not the ideal number, the actual average) 3. A willingness to sit with the result
The hardest part is step 3.
Most people close the calculator before they really let the number land. They convert it back into the vague abstract: I should spend more time with them. And then nothing changes.
The number only works if you let it be a number.
I played basketball with my son last week. We played for about an hour. I was distracted for the first ten minutes, then I wasn’t.
I don’t know if it was one of the good 40 afternoons or one of the other ones. But I showed up for it.
That’s what the number is for.
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