If there is one thing we start noticing deeply around the age of 50, it is time. Not in a fearful, “life is running out” way. But in a thoughtful, almost mathematical way.
We realize that time is not endless. But neither is it scarce.
If we live to be 90 or 100, the 30 or 40 years ahead of us are longer than most people’s entire working lives. That’s not “time running out.” That’s time waiting to be claimed.
The bigger question is: what will we do with this time?
The attention trap: Why hours don’t matter
The truth is that time is overrated. Attention is underrated.
We all have hours. But very few of us have attention that is fully ours. Years slip into routine. The calendar consumes us. And in the gaps of daily efficiency, our unlived life quietly waits.
I’ve started asking myself a simple question:
Where is my attention going? And is it going where I want my life to go?
Because the two are always aligned.
Attention is how we shape our second innings. Not by restructuring everything, but by noticing everything. The morning sunlight through a window. The quiet companionship of a friend. The comfort of a familiar cup of tea. The joy of a new hobby. The calm of finishing a walk without a step target.
Life expands not with big events but with deeper attention.
The ‘one hour’ experiment
If you’re over 50, try this experiment:
Pick one hour a day and guard it fiercely. No screens, no obligations. Fill it with something that energizes you. Reading. Walking. Music. Learning. Gardening. Writing.
You will find that the hour transforms the day. Then slowly, the days transform the years.
We don’t need more time.
We need more ownership of the time we already have.
And perhaps that is the real secret to living to 100 — not extending the years but expanding the ones we have right now.
In the debut edition of Live to 100, we explored the crucial shifts every 50-plus individual needs for greater peace of mind. In the second part of the series, we turned our focus to ‘inner fitness’, and how it could be a game changer. In the third edition, we found how the ‘quiet middle’ can unravel a new, more intentional chapter of life.
In the fourth installment, we decoded why money after 50 is no longer about accumulation but peace. The fifth edition talked about quiet loneliness that emerges around 50, while sixth was about dealing with money anxiety after 60.
Sanjay Mehta is a digital entrepreneur, investor, board advisor, and public speaker. He is the founder of Ananta Quest and co-founded Social Wavelength, which became one of India’s leading social media agencies and was later acquired by WPP to become Mirum India.
