.jpg)
Explore the science behind our perception of time and learn how to create lasting memories and live a more fulfilling life, no matter your age.
"Time is not what happens to you. Time is what you do with what happens to you."
– Victor Frankl
“They grow up so fast.” “Cherish those little moments together. Time flies.” “I wish I was more present when they were younger.”
Those are the sentences I have heard as a parent when I share that I have two young adult boys, Noah (5 years old) and Elijah (3 years old).
I wonder what that 13-year-old me in that picture was thinking at that time. That moment seems like yesterday in my memory.
The older I get, the more I feel like my perception of time is accelerating at the pace of the universe’s expansion.
Time is a human construct like language, money, and the equator. Yet, it has a different meaning to us. I am sure Noah and Elijah will perceive our time together differently.
Here are the three main reasons for time speeding up in life:
1. Time Shrinks As You Get Older
2. Memories Requires More Energy Late In Life
3. Days Are Full With Stuff While Empty With Meaning
4. Your Brain Mechanics Is Losing Its Time Juice
5. Emotions Break Time Speed
Now, please let me invite you into the TARDIS of my own creation.
“The TARDIS (/ˈtɑːrdɪs/; acronym for "Time And Relative Dimension In Space") is a fictional hybrid of a time machine and spacecraft that appears in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its various spin-offs.”
TARDIS. (2024, April 16). In Wikipedia.
1. Time Shrinks As You Get Older
"Time is a river that flows swiftly past. The water you see rushing by is gone, and that which you do not see is coming."
– Marcus Aurelius
As a concept, time is linked to the observer. It is like when you are sitting at the side of the road, and a car passes by. The older you get, the faster the same cars pass from your perspective.
You can feel like every decade is an hour, every year is a minute, and every day flies by in the blink of an eye. You see your childhood memories as some event from a week ago. Your performance review at work last year seems to have been done a century ago. And your previous holidays were over even before they started.
That is the power of the shifting of your perspective of time. Maybe because you get older, you are like that Windows 95 computer trying to run Windows 12.
In the 21st century, distractions are everywhere. Your brain is an analog machine not equipped with digital-era tools.
That is unplanned obsolescence right before your eyes.
You can do many things to hit the brakes at the speed of time as you get older.
Don’t let your brain die in your comfort zone. Be a long life learner every day. Learn new things daily. Visit places you have never been before. Just be curious.
Don’t let the monkey mind wander aimlessly. Let it sit under the tree of the present moment. Force it to pause. Make it aware of your surroundings. Make that monkey mind a mindful memory builder/
Don’t chase the pixel light behind a screen. Embrace the present light every single day. Reset and reflect every single day. Journal daily. Each day, save one story in your bank of stories. Share that story later with the word.
2. Memories Requires More Energy Late In Life
"We are creatures of habit, and we tend to fall into routines that can make our days seem to blur together."
– Gretchen Rubin
The older you get, the higher the threshold for a new memory in your brain. In other words, you have seen it all. You have heard it all. You are blind to the mundane. You are only focused on the extraordinary while forgetting the beauty and magic of the ordinary.
You ignore the more opportunities of the mundane to build new memories. You are chasing the extraordinary that might never happen. It means less potential for new memories.
As you take up adult life, you cannot distinguish between your Monday and Sunday. Everything is the same. You think about the weekend during the work days. You spend the weekends stressing about the coming week.
You eat routines daily, and your brain becomes lazy encoding new memories. Monotony is atrophying your muscle memory.
Don't imprison yourself in your own mind's routines. Let things get spicy a little bit. Break the routines with new activities. Try to take new classes, join new communities, and infuse high memories into your daily life.
Don’t rely solely on your brain to retain information. To a certain extent, use the power of digital means (photos, videos) or analogic artifacts (journaling, note-taking) to create memory cues.
That might help you capture the magic of some moments. Don’t just forget to live your life first before trying to document it.
3. Days Are Full With Stuff While Empty With Meaning
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."
– Albert Einstein
You fill your days with empty, mundane tasks. You feel like your life is the final assembly line of the same shit every single day. To your mind, nothing is new. So why bother paying attention? It asks. You are playing the first day of Groundhog Day on a loop.
At the end of the day, you have seen the sunset and the sunrise. What has happened in between is a mystery to you. You are like the protagonist in Memento. Your short-term memory has been fried by the mundane. Your heart is blind. Your eyes bleed for more fresh air.
You are locked in the boring loop. You cannot unlock any new experience to be encoded in your code. You see time sleep away like a rainbow in the sky.
Once again, hit pause and play with the present moment. Yes, you feel like you are suffocating in the fabrics of darkness, gloom, and doom. That might be the case. Yet where there is darkness, there is light. Find the shine in your day.
Stop. You are here right now. Stop. Feel the breeze in your face. Stop. You are here.
Stop. You have more than one sense. Stop talking. Start feeling. Feel the warmth of the light in your skin. Take a bite of life. You are beautiful. You are the universe in a fractal.
I see you now. I feel you know. I hear you now. I love the feeling of your existence. I enjoy the smile on your face. I embrace the tears of your sorrows. Let me borrow your thoughts for a while. It will be worthwhile. Take back the ownership of your present time.
4. Your Brain Mechanics Is Losing Its Time Juice
"To us, time is a stream dragging us away. To a child, it is the sea, in which he bathes."
– Heraclitus
When you are young, everything is new. Every experience is a first to you and a must to your brain. Wrapped in many novelties, you stretch your perception of time. Your first memory of ice cream is still biting the eternity of your mind.
The older you get, the more difficult it is to find new stimulations that excite you. Your perception of time is on the brink of extinction. Everything is faster than the speed of light.
The deeper you dig, the more vivid your childhood memories become. When you close your eyes, it can be a year, a decade, or even half a century. You are transported back to that precise moment in your childhood.
No, those childhood feelings are gone. Let them fly in the wings of time. As an adult, take an opportunity to create even more new experiences. Every day, invest in activities that will build new memories.
Don’t be afraid to start over again. Don’t be scared to be the beginner in a room full of “know-it-all” grown-ups.
Always start your interactions from the two most magical places: curiosity or clarification. Don’t kill that inner child. Play with them. Invite them on stage and let them show you the world from their perspective.
Embrace boredom. Put your mind in airplane mode. Close your eyes and let your mind wander on the wings of imagination, propelled by the wind of wonder.
5. Emotions Break Time Speed (If You Let Them To)
"Our perception of time is not absolute. It can be warped by our emotions."
– Daniel Kahneman
Some pivotal moments of your life felt like an eternity. Fear or intense emotions can discord your perception of time.
When you are in a fight, flight or freeze mindset, time seems to slow down. Those moments are like black holes bending your space-time continuum.
After all, your beast brain is like the emergency mode of your life. It is the slow-motion monster inside you. When in survival mode, you are hyper-aware for good or bad.
Life can feel like a succession of shitstorms. It is not. It feels like so because your brain is wired to encode more pain than pleasure for the species' survival.
There is no life free of stress or anxiety. There is no life with only ups and no downs. Practice the power of resilience in challenging situations proactively.
Train yourself in challenging situations with low stakes. Imagine a difficult situation and write down the rules to deal with it upfront. Always breathe before you react.
Be here right now. You can do it. You have done it before.
Final Thoughts
There is no going back in time. Yes, you can dream about a time machine. There is no speed of time. There are only our perceptions of it.
As we grow older, everything seems colder and darker. Each day is just yesterday in repetition. Tomorrow never comes.
Time is a mind construct. Time is your perception of it. Time is neither for nor against you, personally. It exists only in your mind.
It is up to you to shift your perspective by acknowledging your perception of time. Time, you see, is flawed. Time flies. It is up to you to harness the present moment and make the best of it.
Every day, rise as a child again. Everything must feel new. Every day, rise as a child again. Today is your first day. Today might be your last day. Today is where you harvest joy.
Time is like Gold. It is not meant to be locked away. It is meant to be used as a resource to live better now.
I don’t remember what I was thinking about when that picture was taken. I only remember the innocence and the joy of presence with a smile. And that moment will die with me. Forever.
In the end, time is not a beast to be controlled. It is a moment to be savored. Time is the wrap around the gift of life. You can enjoy it only by being present.
Productivity Mindfulness Memorymaking timeflies personalgrowth
If you find this newsletter valuable, please like it, subscribe, and share it with one person to pay it forward.
#Dare2Care #Dare2Share
#BIOS #BringInyourOwnSoul #LeadHeartship #Leadership
Photo by Alvin Mahmudov on Unsplash
