DURING THE DRIVE home from work, American writer Danny Rubin found himself listening to NPR (US talk radio).

On the programme, the host talked about President Obama’s speech on the National Security Agency, in which the president, in a nutshell, said he will reform the NSA but not stop its collection of metadata.

He pulled into his driveway, clicked off the radio and thought, “Ya know, I feel like I’ve been listening to NPR more now than I used to, which was basically zero.”

He had just turned 30 (and already misses these 20 things about being in his 20s) and realised his consumption of talk radio, in general, is slowly but steadily increasing with age.

He then wrote the following on his blog:

If I had to predict my relationship with talk radio over the long haul, here’s my best guess:

Come to think of it, we can describe much of our lives in simple line graphs, he says.

Which means this line graph is all over the place:

At least family life remains consistent (after our teens):

When it comes to drinking, the line graph gets a little more colourful:

Our careers also take a toll:

That’s why, when life gets too crazy, we need to curl up with a sure thing:

Children’s programming always lightens the mood too:

Even at our lowest, may we never do this (except once):

Still, plenty of life’s greatest truths have no timeline at all.

What’s true happiness?

Let’s try again.

Still following this blog post? Remarkable!

What graph do you agree with most? Tell us in the comments section.

Danny Rubin is the creator and writer of News To Live By, a blog that highlights the career advice ‘hidden’ in the day’s top stories. In Danny’s columns, he shows how any news story can actually make us better at living. Follow the blog @NewsToLiveBy or subscribe to the e-newsletter.