Hundred Percent Mortality Rate

Recently I was reviewing an excellent paper written by Rylee, one of my granddaughters, discussing Canada’s Residential School history. I was curious about some of her stats and decided to investigate, slicing and dicing in different ways. Then I thought I’d ask this baseline question: “During the period, what was the average mortality rate for all populations?”, but fortunately didn’t press “enter”. I saved myself the shame of having AI come back with something like, “You moron, the average mortality rate for a large population over a long period of time is 100%”.

So far in history, at least, and subject to a few possible exceptions offered by various religious traditions, every creature who is born will meet the same fate. Life ends as surely as it begins. Given that there must be a million pieces written about that fact, I won’t add one more. But let me play with numbers a bit.

In crude numbers, average life expectancy in Canada in 2024 (https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/) was just over 83 years, a little more for women, a little less for men, and that statistic puts us at number nineteen internationally, only by a few years, but ahead of the United States by about three years. At the lower end of the scale, a very large cluster of nations have average rates in the low sixties, showing how blessed we are to live in this country with its universal health care, lower crime rates, and healthier nutrition.

From the lowest to the highest country, there’s a thirty-one year spread. Thirty-one years’ less life, on average, if you live in Nigeria rather than Hong Kong.

All very interesting statistics indeed, and comforting if you happen to live in one of the more fortunate countries. But what is implicit in every calculation of life expectancy is that there is a terminal date. So far in history, nobody has escaped that, no king, no emperor, no high priest, no movie star, no notable, no peasant. If you have a watertight plan to be the exception to the rule, I’d like to hear about it.

Now, screeds like this often precede a sales pitch for funeral services or life insurance or tax planning, and those are all important subjects. I won’t add to the mix. Given that much of my writing is about professional happiness and excellence, let me go in another direction: you only get one shot at a good life, both personal and professional.

But first, a confession. Here I am in my eighth decade and must confess abjectly that I can’t say I’ve made best use of all the time I’ve been given so far. In fact, most of it has been frittered away accepting second best in almost all areas. Most of my good fortune has arrived courtesy of others, including my wonderful wife, children, friends, partners, associates, neighbours, assistants, and sometimes seatmates on the train or airplane.

Professionally, for far too long I preferred “current stream of revenue” over the price of specialization, effectively accepting today’s satisfactory income rather than some short-term sacrifice to get myself into a place of a high-demand specialty and the far more interesting work and far nicer revenue that route would provide. Sure, it all “kind of” worked out in the end, but I missed much of the deeper satisfaction and greater income that an earlier specialization would have provided.

I’ve had clients who drove their marriages into the wall for any one of a hundred stupid reasons, but I’ve also had many who did a hard analysis and realized that their joyless unions would never get any better, and screwed up the courage to call it quits. Colleagues who have concluded, often reluctantly, that their current law firm or partnership was hopelessly and forever toxic, and who took control of their own destiny. Acquaintances who, in the middle of a joyless career, had the courage to leap out into space to do the thing they’d always dreamed, much more often than not with happy results.

What they say about life only going around once is true. For a few of us, it ends suddenly with no opportunity for reflection, whether joyous or regretful. But most of us, at any point, can look back and ask, “Has it been as good as it could have been?”, and for all who ask that question, most can also ask, “How can I make it better going forward?”

And those are questions for which I can’t give you a snappy answer. Each of us has to ask ourselves the hard questions, and have the courage to move forward accordingly. And it’s at that point that some good guidance and accountability come into play. That’s why I especially love coaching younger professionals (lawyers mostly but not exclusively) and watching them steer themselves into more satisfying niche areas.

Happy to talk!