I have always been a logophile, a lover of words. I enjoy word games, I like learning new words, and my profession, as a research scientist, involved lots of writing.
But I recently discovered that some numbers are becoming important in my life, especially the number 90.
When I was a student, getting a grade of 90 or above, an A, was what I always aimed for. As I was a good student, it was something I often achieved. And now as I get older, that number has again become important.
For example, keeping enough power in my iPhone is an ongoing concern, especially if I will be leaving my home and not sure I will be able to charge it while I am gone. So before going out, I charge it so that it is at least at 90% power.
In one aspect of my life, my husband’s health, reaching 90 has become of critical importance. He has intermittent hypoxia, insufficient oxygen in the blood, due to lung damage. He can manage quite well with supplemental oxygen, that he takes when his oxygenation level drops below 90. He uses an oximeter to identify when this occurs. Getting to at least 90 is a goal every day.
And when I was conducting research on HIV/AIDS, this number was used as an integral part of the UN goal to fight AIDS: the 90/90/90 plan aimed to have 90% of people living with HIV know their HIV status, 90% of them to be on HIV treatment, and of these, 90% to have a suppressed viral load. These remain target numbers for many countries.
Given this importance of 90 in my life, I looked further into its general use in other areas.
In sports, shooting 90 is considered a good score for a regulation 18-hole golf course. And a football game is 90 minutes.
The 90/10 principle, popularized by Stephen Covey, states that life is made up of 10% of what happens to you, and 90% of how you react to it. I don’t know of any scientific evidence supporting those relative proportions. However, the general idea, that your happiness in life is mainly influenced by your reactions to what happens to you rather than what actually happens, makes more sense to me as I age. I think this becomes particularly important as some of the challenges of aging arise. I plan to keep this principle in mind as I confront them.
And the measurement and use of the 90 degree angle is a critical part of geometry and construction. Perhaps that’s why it is called a right angle.
And finally, as someone who values words, numbers, and logic, I have always marveled at the Yogi Berra quote that brings them all together: “Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.”
So my conclusion from all this is that while getting to 100% of one’s goals may be the ideal—shooting for 90 can often get me where I’d like to be.
Reflections on Aging 