Time To Your First (Next) Million

Q: So how long will it take you to make your next million?

Response (note, not an answer): Million what? Steps? Blinks? Dollars?

My estimates, for the average middle-aged man like me (41 years old with kids, moderately active, lives in the suburbs), and ranked by time frame from shortest to longest.

5 days: 1,000,000 tree leaves seen. Estimate 1,000 leaves per tree (probably really low). And see 200 trees per day (maybe high for most guys, if they don’t go outside, but if they go for a walk or run like I did this morning, they’ll get there easy). The low on the # of leaves per tree counteracts the high on the # of trees seen. So we’ll go with 200,000 leaves per day. Pretty easy.

8.5 days: 1,000,000 tire rotations. My tire circumference is 23 inches, so that’s 72.22 inches per tire rotation. Estimating 1,000 miles per month of driving (fair for modern American life), is 33.33 miles / day. That’s 2,112,000 inches / day / tire, which is 29,244 rotations / day / tire, and at 4 tires per car, you’re looking at 116,976 rotations / day / car. This one was the funnest to work out the math.

31.6 days: 1,000,000 blinks. I counted 33 blinks in a minute. That would be 30,303 minutes to get to 1,000,000; but remember, we’re awake and blinking only 2/3 of the time, so I need to adjust that upwards by a factor of 3/2. That works out to be 31.57 days to get there. No, I don’t want to count them all.

46.3 days: 1,000,000 breaths. 15 in the minute I counted. I get more during exercise and fewer during sleep, probably, so let’s call this a reasonable middle. 66,667 minutes, 46.3 days.

125 days: 1,000,000 steps. It’s recommended to get 10,000 steps per day. I’m guessing most men don’t get that, even when they exercise. Lower-bounding this to 8,000. Thus it’s right around 4 months to get a million steps.

500 days: 1,000,000 wordsspoken. Estimating 2,000 words spoken per day. Not sure how I come up with that estimate, because the average person can speak 150 words / minute. Which would mean you’re only talking about 15 minutes a day, and if anyone is giving a speech, or presentation, or talking at church, or disciplining your kids, you’re probably talking for longer than that. Yet most people don’t talk that long day in and day out. So I’m throwing this in here because that seems a reasonable estimate. So a little over a year and a quarter to get this benchmark.

10 years: 1,000,000 dollars earned. So we’re assuming a mid-career professional, probably had a few promotions in the past 15 years, total compensation now is right around $100,000. Not out of line in today’s economy, so at that pace it takes a decade to earn your next million.

12.5 years: 1,000,000 dollars spent. Assume 80% spending rate and 20% for savings. If you consider social security as savings and 10% savings for retirement, that isn’t unreasonable.

383.6 years (tie): 1,000,000 orgasms viewed. Let’s assume that the average male watches some pornography every week. He’ll see a few male and a few female orgasms. Assuming 1 male and 3 female orgasms per scene, an average of 3 scenes per session, and an average of 4+ sessions per week, I’m estimating 50 orgasms viewed per week. That will take 20,000 weeks, or 140,000 days, which over 380 years.

383.6 years (tie): 1,000,000 handshakes. Considering maybe 30-35 at church, or an equal number at networking meetings during the week, or being introduced at work functions. Then I add in a few more for seeing a neighbor or two every few days. Overall I’m expecting 50 / week, same as orgasms viewed. It takes a while to get a million handshakes.

799 years: 1,000,000 pieces of junk mail received: These are the things you don’t want – dentist solicitation postcards, letters from the American Red Cross, packages from the school district with information about the rash that broke out in your kid’s grade last week. If we get 4 per day, 6 delivery days a week, that’s only 24 / week. Even longer.

6,393 years: 1,000,000 orgasms experienced: Assuming 1-2 sexual interactions each week with a partner and another 1-2 orgasms solo, that leads to an estimate of 3 orgasms per male per week. This will obviously be higher when you have a partner, lower when you don’t (or, maybe not?), so let’s keep that for our long-term estimate. That’s over 2.3 million days, which really adds up.

2 thoughts on “Time To Your First (Next) Million

  1. First, I kind of love this list.
    The math on the tire description hurt my brain, so I skimmed through thinking “that’s too much math,” to the read that it was the funnest math. Weird.
    When I read about orgasms viewed, I immediately wanted to know if that included ones experienced or ones watched live of your partner during the experience.
    Then the junk mail, I would’ve made a bet that it wouldn’t take this long. Seems like so much junk mail everyday.
    And then I see the orgasms experienced and my questions are answered and I feel complete. However, now I want to try to reach that number and feel like we should work harder to make that happen.

    Like

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