If you have ever spent any time talking to someone older, you most definitely have heard them spout something along the lines of “Life is too short”, followed by a various statement usually convincing you to stop doing something. Personally I used to think that life seems pretty long and a day can seem like a long time, but as I get older, I find myself thinking quite the opposite. Recently people have done studies asking the question of whether or not the older we get, if we perceive time as moving faster.
The theory behind us perceiving time moving faster is mostly because when we were little 5 years seemed like no time, but at 60 years, it is a much smaller fraction of your life. Due to being a small fraction in the grand scheme of your life, we perceive it as going by faster. However the real probability is actually much more interesting. What if I said that rather than time moving faster, the times we actually remember are far more infrequent than when we were younger.
This was the idea that was first proposed in the turn of the 20th century by psychologist William James. His hypothesis was that because the human mind remembers events more clearly the first time we do them and that most of our firsts happen at a young age, our perception of time feels much slower. As we age, we become more routine in the way we do things and many of our firsts are harder to come by. By our old age when firsts rarely happen, life seems to pass by at the speed of light. Especially when we become consumed in our work and do nothing else, life passes us by.
Much of this has to do with actually how we are living our lives on a daily basis. If we are working towards something and have set goals that we want to accomplish, time could seem like it moves at a snails pace. Once we become more engaged with our own lives and don’t just sit around doing nothing, we are perceiving time at a slower pace, but better yet, using time efficiently. We cant ever go back in time, so the next best thing is to take advantage of and savor every last minute we are getting.
No matter what age you are, there is always a way to try something new and go after new experiences. In the grand scheme of life, most people hardly ever remember items they bought or money they spent, experiences are what last a life time. So if you are someone that feels like life is passing by at too fast of a pace, perhaps it is just passing you by. Maybe you need to experience something new or try to find a new hobby that brings joy to your life. If you remember every day as joyful and productive, you will never think that time is passing you by.
Thanks to @Elyaque for the badges