Life has an incredible amount to teach us about living well on planet Earth, in no small part due to the fact that it’s been thriving here for 3.85 billion years. But, how long is that really? If we take the age of Earth—4.5 billion years—and compress it into one year 144 years would be 1 second! We love celebrating these milestones throughout the year and invite you to celebrate them with us. We’ve created a few fun materials that will help you remember throughout the year just how young of a species we are!

Take a look at Earth’s milestones to better grasp the time-tested wisdom of our fellow planet-mates. When do you think homo sapiens first appear?

Earth’s Calendar Year plainly shows our age as a species relative to the much, much older forms of life on Earth. And it helps us see that our story is but a tiny part of the Earth’s story. (The sun isn’t expected to burn out for another 5 billion years, so maybe now is Earth’s slightly premature “mid-life” crisis!).

There are 30 million other species on the planet today. Together we represent less than 1 percent of all the species that have ever lived since Life first appeared on Earth 3.8 billion years ago.

There’s no guarantee that we, or any of the other species around us, will remain. We are all subject to the laws of natural selection. But we are surrounded by success stories that we can consciously emulate. We’re surrounded by species that have adapted and evolved to create conditions conducive to future generations of their own species, and others.

Is the Earth here for us? Certainly not in the way we’ve used it to date. It’s not here for us to plunder and consume. The Earth and its inhabitants are a repository of brilliant survival stories that are here for us to learn from.

When we revise our story to one in which we see the Earth and its biodiversity as models and mentors for us, then, and only then, will we have the right motivation and the right perspective to fit in—to survive, and to thrive.

Don’t miss these fun perspective-framing dates throughout the year by adding them to your calendar!!