The other day when Ben, John and I went to the YMCA I wondered if it would last. Because Ben was agitated, he was making noise. Sporadic, and yet loud enough to be jarring. I plopped on the bicycle to distance myself from him, and John stalwartly guided Ben through a series of strength machines. I looked around and felt grateful that most exercisers were wearing earphones, and seemed undisturbed. Perhaps others assumed it to be the loud exhalation of someone hoisting two hundred pounds over his head. In any case, we were not expelled before his yelling diminished, as it usually does. 

The metrics that pop up on the screen matter to me. The brief encouragement of "Your workout is thirty percent finished" is as good as a glass of water to my spirit. It assures me that this effort is finite, and shows me my progress. 

I wished there were such things for life. 

"Your pain is sixty percent finished" would be a relief to someone with a back ache. 

"Your job search is eighty percent over," would help fuel that last twenty. 

"Ben's outburst is ninety percent done," could help me calm down. Which tends to help him calm down. 

Yet God does not seem to release such numbers. There are of course national averages about life expectancy, and they can give a vague sense of how much longer we will be walking this planet. But we all know people who have succumbed to death too soon, or skirted by the Grim Reaper for an extra decade. 

The thing is, even knowing that there are only five more minutes does not excuse me from pedaling.