The feeling of time passing more quickly as we age is not a unique phenomenon. Nearly everyone you ask can relate to this experience.
Underlying this phenomenon is a simple explanation. Each subsequent second of your existence represents a progressively smaller amount of time. This is exponential (and terrifying).
“Someone help us understand who ordered… this disgusting arrangement.. time and the end.
I don’t want to hear who walked on water. Cause the hallways are empty… clocks tick”
-Raine Maida
Allow me to illustrate with a simple example: childhood. Most of us can recall being a child, feeling like adulthood was this distant, almost unreachable milestone.
We waited impatiently for adulthood, envious of the freedoms adults seemed to have: the independence, the ability to make decisions, the absence of parental supervision and authority. Adulthood seemed to promise the freedom to shape our lives as we pleased.
But why did childhood feel so long? Why do we regret our urgency to grow up later in life? And why does the magic and weight of time seem to fade faster and faster as we age?
The answer lies in how we perceive time. As each year goes by, it represents a smaller portion of the life we’ve already lived. For example, to a child who has just turned two, another year represents half of their entire life experience. This makes it feel vast, almost like an eternity.
For a 10-year-old, an additional year is about 10% of their lifetime. A year is still significant, but not nearly as all-encompassing. And by adulthood, each new year becomes an even smaller fraction of our lives.
This effect grows more dramatic with age. A 60-year-old might find that two decades from 60 to 80 pass with the same perceived speed as three short years during childhood. In other words, those two decades feel subjectively equivalent to one-third of a lifetime, just as the span from ages 9 to 12 might have felt during childhood.
Time, in this sense, is the most precious form of wealth we possess. As I’ve mentioned in some of my financial articles, time is a currency that can never be bought back. We can invest in our health and buy ourselves more years, but the moments we spend in pursuit of these goals are irrevocably gone..
So how can we make the most of our time? How can we slow it down, make it feel richer and more expansive? The answer lies in how our brains work.
Consider those familiar commutes to work. Have you ever found yourself driving on autopilot, barely aware of the time between your starting point and your destination? This is because your brain has developed shortcuts, or heuristics, for handling repetitive tasks. Over time, it stops consciously processing these familiar experiences, which causes them to slip by almost unnoticed.
Straight roads or highways that have little going on on them and appear the same kilometer after kilometer are especially bad for this to the point that there is even a term for it called highway hypnosis.
The same principle applies to daily routines and habits. The monotony of sameness makes time feel like it’s speeding by, which is why we often feel life accelerating as we age. But introducing variety trying new things, stepping outside of our comfort zones breaks this cycle. This is why meaningful moments, filled with novelty, feel so significant and seem to stretch time.
That brings us to the solution of what you can to maximize your enjoyment of life and make time tick slower for you. Variety.
“Variety is the spice of life”
You’ve probably heard this saying before. It rings true when we consider that by breaking up the routine and trying new experiences, we can slow down our perception of time.
This is why we remember our childhoods as long, formative periods filled with unique experiences and why adulthood often feels like a series of rapidly passing weeks.
Keep this in mind when you interact with children. The small gestures and moments that seem inconsequential to us can leave an outsized impact on them. By being a consistent, positive presence in their lives, you’re giving them one of the greatest gifts imaginable: time, in all its fullness.
Arun
-written May 04, 2023. Edited and reposted here consolidate some old writing.