Echo Statement

Ok, I am probbaly going about this the wrong way but I need the DIV to be a link. The issue is, I issue the div class depending on the posts age:

$link=the_permalink();
$mylimit= 2 * 86400; //days * seconds per day
$post_age = date('U') - get_post_time('U');
if ($post_age < $mylimit) {

echo ' <div class="post-BIG" onclick="location.href='.$link.'"> ';
}

There is more but that explains everything. The link is not working. I don’t know how to make do so. Does anybody with more php knowledge know a solution?