Theory on Life #4

(I can only actually remember one of the previous 3 theories on life)

I have a few theories on life.  #4:

Your net life experience is time you've lived multiplied by ALL YOUR HABITS.

TLDR;
You know calculus right?  There's this crazy concoction called the integral, which does nothing more than calculate the area between an axis and any particular function.

So say you were 99.9 years old, and you knew you were going to live to be 100, and you were looking back on your life.  Would you be pleased?

For every facet of your life, you could probably graph the activity.  The area under the curve would then be the "total" amount spent under that facet.  For instance, "junk food consumption", the graph might be a steady line high above the axis.  Or its converse, "healthy eating" would be a steady line low.  Mind you, you might have a spike or a valley once in a while, but chances are you've established your habits and you've stuck to them.  If you've managed to change your habits, then part of your life will be a steady line, and the rest of your life will be a steady line at a different position.

So, what other facets could we graph?
Time spent with your kids/spouse/family
Time spent working
Time spent working that wasn't necessary
Time spent developing some talent/working on a hobby/contributing to society
Time spent watching TV/playing video games
Days in a given week where we could work on lofty goals, but just decide we're too tired, so we lounge instead
Exercise

Now these are just some of the things that I think about; you could probably come up with others.  I would bet that the average person could graph their lives for these and other facets, and find that the lines would be pretty steady across their entire lives.  Why?  Because we have habits.  We don't like to change.  Sure, we might have a few moments of being "better", and make a spike or a valley in the graph, but in the end, those few moments of spikes or valleys are not going to make a significant impact on the total, or the area under the curve.

So, if we find a graph we don't like, the only way to change it and make any impact is to change our habits.  Making a goal (which on average, probably amounts to making a goal, not meeting it, and making the same goal next year) isn't going to cut it.  Temporarily trying a fad and giving up isn't going to cut it.  Make a real effort to turn your life to where you want it to be, by maximizing the graphs that mean something to you, and minimize the fruitless ones that get in the way of that.

Disclaimer:  The intent of that previous sentence is NOT to say that spending time with your family gets in the way of your watching television so you should give up on them and watch television all day.