HSBC tells your whole life story in one red line

It's a bit depressing. Photo / iStock

Behold, your life's work compressed into a single red line on a graph.

In a recent report, British bank HSBC released this graph showing the productivity of the average person during their lifetime.

The graph divides life up into five economic periods beginning with 'start' and ending with 'death'.

According to the data, people experience a thrilling rise in economic productivity during their 20s, which slows at age 30 into a steady rise to the 'absolute peak' about age 50.

It's all downhill from there. A gradual decline into 'retire' turns into a rapid downfall, ending in the flatline of 'death'.

The ageing person can thus expect to slide into irrelevancy as their grandchildren begin 'initial peak', their children 'absolute peak' and finally become as productive as a baby before the final oblivion of death.