We all walk around with a subconscious timeline in our heads. We think we know roughly how far away the door is.
The other day, a very close friend of mine was in a freak car accident. She is 39. If you saw a photo of the mangled car, you’d wonder how she was still breathing. She escaped with just a broken leg, but the door came right up to her bumper without a second of warning.
We try to manage that uncertainty with math. My parents spent a lot of time planning their retirement. They didn't just save money; they calculated withdrawal proportions, investment allocations, and timelines.
During the planning, my dad insisted that running the math out to age 95 would be sufficient. If they lived past that, they’d figure it out then. My mom argued that plenty of people live past 95. I don't know what her final magic number was.
And then, at 71, my dad almost died.
Without warning or any history of ill health, his colon literally exploded. My dad was the kind of guy who could take a bullet and push through the pain, but he screamed in terror. When the fire truck arrived before the ambulance, he told them they had to transport him in the rig because there wasn't time to wait.
He was minutes from death. Later that day, they found the Stage 3 cancerous tumor that had created the blockage.
Not 95. Not even the average of 76. Seventy-fucking-one.
He died a year later.