You Took My Breath Away, and Now I’m Dead

<p>I made the mistake of looking up how many breaths a person takes in their lifetime.</p> <p>605,491,200 if we live to be seventy-two.</p> <p>So Elon Musk has roughly 100 times more money than I&rsquo;ll ever have gasps of air.</p> <p>Neat.</p> <p>Worse &mdash; because it&rsquo;s not like I can invest in more air &mdash; that if I put my breath in the right places, it&rsquo;ll pay dividends. No.</p> <p>And, rounding up to my next birthday, I&rsquo;ve already spent 277,516,800 breaths. Upon realizing this &mdash; I couldn&rsquo;t fight off a single, nagging thought:</p> <p><em>How many of these breaths have I spent on useless conversations with people I don&rsquo;t like?</em></p> <p>How many breaths have I spent with one foot out the door, hand on the knob, nodding, saying, &ldquo;Mhm, yeah, alright, right, yeah&hellip;.&rdquo;</p> <p>How much of my ever-dwindling bank account of life did I waste listening to someone I don&rsquo;t like talking about how stressful it was finding worm medication for their dog over the weekend?</p> <p>I&rsquo;m a frivolous spender &mdash; a serial impulse buyer &mdash; but I did not realize I was so irresponsible that I&rsquo;d spend 160 breathes on lamentations over why someone&rsquo;s brother hasn&rsquo;t called them in two weeks and, &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t that messed up?&rdquo;</p> <p><a href="https://medium.com/the-haven/you-took-my-breath-away-and-now-im-dead-dc5c320a8d04">Read More</a></p>
Tags: Breath Away