We measure our life mostly in units of time. Adolescence, teenage years, adulthood... and because most things tend to happen evenly over our lives, we tend to use events as markers of time too.

I am 31, and let’s assume I live till 80.

I’ve experience just over a 1/3 of all the winters I’ll ever experience.

I eat pizza about once a month so probably have about 600 pizzas to eat.

I go to the beach like twice a year. So I probably have less than 100 beach visits left

There’ve been 6 world cups in my life and I’ll probably see about 12 more..

The point is, most things we use to measure time are things that are evenly distributed across all our lives.

But perhaps the most important thing in life is not evenly distributed - relationships

For many of my peers our parents are around their 60s.

For most, for the first 18 years of your life you spent probably more than 90% of your time with them.

But then many of us moved away from home for university. And most likely moved to a town far away for a job

You go from spending more than 330 days a year seeing your parents in some form. To possible seeing them for less than 20 days.

Assuming I’m lucky again and my parents live to 80 - 1 might say I have 20 more years left with them. But in reality, it’s only just a handful of days

When you look at that reality, you realize that despite not being at the end of your life, you may very well be nearing the end of your time with some of the most important people in your life.

It’s the same thing with my sister. Despite living in the same house as her for 13 years, after I went to university the close contact time we have has diminished. I probably also see her less than 20/30 days a year now.

And the Same with close friends. For me I was at boarding school. I literally lived with many of my mates. Now, I’ve not seen some of them in over 2 years...

So yes, I may only be 31 with more than 50 years to live. But I probably also am in the final 10% of the close contact time I have the most important people in my life.

There are many, many lessons to be drawn from this. But what I would emphasise, is that you go out there and do best by the people who matter, now. Be conscious about how you spend your time and don’t be guided some sort of social inertia

Stop being a dick. Sort out squabbles and remind people who matter, that you love them.

And if you’re in the last 10% of the time with someone you love, keep that in the front of your mind next time you are in the tail end with them and see time for what it really is. Precious.