The passage of my life is measured out in

What’s your unit of time?

This is what I mean. If you say you’re looking forward to a good _____, or you had a terrible _____, or this _____ is scheduled up pretty tight, or you can’t wait for the next _____, what’s the unit?

For me it’s the week. I hold the idea of a week in my head including what needs to be done, how I feel about the past or present one, how I’m structuring my time. This is true even when I’m not working so that weekends are less important. Sometimes I’m not sure what the next day holds, but when I see it as a week it comes together.

I know people who really live in the day and don’t look much forward or back. And people who are focused on months, whether because of a business reason or just their cognitive slant. And a few who think longer-term. Students particularly think of a term or a school year, and people in some businesses live by the quarter or the fiscal year and think that way constantly.

And if you’re constantly in severe pain, or always drunk, or five years old, life comes by hours at best.

What’s yours?