Time Flies

I remember the smell of summer during school vacations. I was climbing Mango trees on a lazy afternoon, imagining all the fun that was about to come! They were long, never-ending. Each such vacation seemed to fill with several lifetimes when I look back now.

When I compare that to now, life passes by in the fast lane. I try to reach out with my hand, trying to grab time. Alas, it slips away, days turn to weeks, weeks to months, and months to years.

It feels only like yesterday when I had enrolled in university, and now it’s been so long since I have been working, time flies or does it? What makes time pass by so fast as we get older?

Physical Time:

Physical time is what we measure. A minute consists of sixty seconds, and a day consists of 24 hours. Following the Gregorian calendar, we have 12 months a year, the time it takes for the earth to revolve around the sun.

This time barring leap years and leap seconds, are the same in our lifetimes. The physical time we perceive on earth remains consistent from when we are born until we die. Yet, our feeling of time differs. What makes it so?

The Perception of Time:

The feeling we have of time flying by is psychological. When being a kid, we have our entire life ahead of us. We have experienced it little; hence each experience is novel for us.

The first day at school, the first trip, the first summer camp, or the first time you took part in a competition. All such experiences fill our childhood and make it what it is.

With time, the novelty wanes, and things become mundane. The once exciting days become a rut, and once you have seen the majority of life, surprises become few and far.

That was one reason why 2020, where most of the world was working from home, felt it flew by. Sitting at home, deprived of novel experiences, and living the same routine made it pass by at a brisk pace.

Prospective Time Perception:

When you experience time within an instance, think about a boring lecture at school, time seems to go forever without end. Each minute feels like an eternity, and your only hope to get over it as soon as possible.

Compare that to spending time on a Sunday. In a blink of an eye, it passes by. Making you question, where did your Sunday go?

By doing things that engage us, our perception of the current moment changes, from a slow crawl to gone in sixty seconds.

Retrospective Time Perception:

The way we remember a life event, think about your day to day life, where you got up, went to work, had the usual lunch, watched a TV series, and went to bed.

After going through the motions for a couple of months, you would have little to recall as your mind would have gotten used to the same old pattern.

In comparison, an exciting trip to a new place, trying out new activities, meeting new folks, and eating delicious fresh food. Such actions create hooks in your brain to recall; such simulating events help you stretch time.

How to Slow Down Time:

Finally, putting all the theories together, how do we slow time? There are a couple of ways to do so,

1. Pursue Novelty: New experiences, hobbies, and trying out new things can prolong our perception of time. So next time, you should try to learn how to cook or to dance.
2. Beginners Mind: Look at the world with the eyes of a child. Instead of expecting it to behave in a certain way, opt to look at it with a fresh set of perspectives from time to time. After all, in the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind, there are few.
3. Break Routines: Instead of going through the same motion each day, try something new. It could be small things, like having a cup of coffee on the balcony or talking to a friend you haven’t spoken to for a while. Making small changes will add up and help you make great memories.
4. Accept The Pace: With age, time will indeed go by faster than when you were young. Accepting that will help you make the changes needed. Remember, acceptance is the first step to change.

Doing things won’t make you an immortal, but it’s a start. You’ll start events in your weeks more and more. Instead of the blur, you’ll have hooks to hang your memories and reminisce the months that have passed.

Sometimes we need to take a breather and make changes to enjoy little time on this tiny blue dot.