Jackson Greenspan, 6 months
It’s hard to believe that my newborn is not so new anymore. The past 6 months went by faster than any I can ever remember. Jackson keeps getting bigger and the days keep getting shorter.
The older I get, the faster life seems to wiz by. I’m pretty sure I used to pray to be older and for a day to finally end. Now, I just want one more minute or another week or the past 10 years back. Is life moving faster or is this how it works? Let’s face it, with Twitter and Facebook, what was news moments ago has already been forgotten. But I’m not sure that has anything to do with my problem. I’m just getting older and now I’m watching my children grow. It’s their turn now right?
I’d enjoy hearing your perspective in the comments. The question is: Is life moving faster now or does it simply move faster as you age?
October 21, 2010:
Since writing this post, I’ve enjoyed some amazing discussions with people all over the world. Some believe life is simply moving faster due to the rapid growth of technology and information dissemination. Others, simply believe that we’re just more aware of ourselves as we age. I am starting to think this phenomenon is related to first half vs. second. In our first half of life, we worry less about the future, as we have plenty of time. As we move towards the 2nd half (I’m 42), we start to see it as half over and less time ahead. I’m pretty sure this is a major factor. That said, the lesson learned here…slow down. I’m going to try. As I progress I will update this post. If you have any tips, please provide in the comments.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
It moves faster as you age because each additional day is a smaller portion of your life. For a six month old, a day is a very long time — but, then, he hasn’t had many days. I talked to a senior a while ago near a drugstore. He had arrived before it opened, and sat down to wait. It would only be an hour…. for him, the hour was shorter than for me.
I think that since the human brain has been proven to evolve on a day to day basis, as we grow older and naturally start planning further and further into the future, our brains actually evolve to perceive time differently than when we are kids.
In other words, as our interests change from immediately playing with that toy to things like buying a house and paying it back in 30 years, or even planning on studying for a midterm in 1 month, our brains naturally change on a neurological level to compensate for the extended time distances.
We also know that time is NOT constant for all things- for example, using Einsteins theory of relativity, we can prove that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light because as matter approaches the speed of light, time relativity for that object is slowed down to ensure that it does not go faster than light, even though time remains unaffected for everything else.
Therefore, to answer the question, I for one believe that as we grow older, our brains actually change to perceive time faster, which would ultimately lead me to say that time DOES move faster as we age.
Info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity
Time moves faster when you do things you love.
Time continues to move at the same speed, but it seems to go faster to people with more experience, knowledge and understanding (i.e. older) — because they don’t have to learn much anymore. NPR did a wonderful piece on the phenomenon. http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/09/29/130221453/how-to-live-forever-or-why-habits-are-a-curse
“How quickly they grow”, “I remember when you were in diapers like it was yesterday” are things I’ve heard my parents, grandparents and family say over the years.
It would seem as we get older we have so much going on including the introduction of children into our lives that time seems to move faster.
It would seem that people have noticed that “time flies” since the beginning of it (time).
Try to take a moment every chance you have to “smell the roses” and appreciate what ever it is that’s happening right then. I can’t guarrantee that it slow things down but at least you’ll have some really good memories.
Pictures are also a great way to keep moments alive.
Congrats to you and your loved ones on the arrival of your son.
I think the perception of life flowing faster underscores a very important idea: MAKE time for your little one. Whatever time you have together is valuable & precious.
I think my friend put it best: “Life is like a roll of paper: the closer you are to the end, the faster it goes.”
)
Eric, I’m 62 and about to become a grandma for the first time. Life is flying by fast, but I am going to devote it to the most important things–my children and grandchildren and learning to live in the present moment. How’s this for a radical idea–if the Baby Boom generation would stop running from death and decide to prepare for death instead, we might even use social media to help us do this.
I think it’s both (technology and the aging process) but I also think there are cultural factors. In the western world we value youth more than maturity so there is a heavy bias towards all things being wonderful when you are young and not so wonderful as you age. I think that we need to try to shift this bias towards how some eastern cultures value their elder citizens.
I also think that we can choose to slow down our own pace by being less bombarded by stuff. We can “fast” from it on certain days and gain a little time back for ourselves. That brings up yet another factor of influence, how does our culture view “me time”? I think it’s mainly viewed as negative/selfish! There are a lot of social pressures put upon us that make us feel we don’t have enough time for all the things we “should” do.
I agree with Arnold. I think it is an illusion of mathematics. We each perceive our experience as a whole. I have a whole life/pie. My 20 year old son has a whole life/pie. Your two year old has a whole life/pie.
Time divides the life/pie into slices.
Jackson’s pie has two (years) slices compared to my pie having 42 (years) slices. Because, my unconcious perception does not register the actual size of the life pie, (we each experience our pie as the same whole) each of his slices feel very large and my slices feel much smaller.
I think time moves faster because as you get older you learn to appreciate every moment more, and enjoy it more. And time does fly when you’re having fun. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re rushing yourself to an earlier grave, but that your just packing more goodness into the time you have.
Children have a knack of helping you to appreciate things more. I have a 19 month old and I’ve really learned to appreciate the simpler things as I watch her grow and discover something new everyday.
Technology has accelerated things too. But it also allows us the luxury of being selective with what to give our attention to. Again, packing more into a day than we used to. I know more minor details about a lot of stuff than I used to, thanks to Twitter and Facebook, and a lot more detailed stuff than I used to too. I filter irrelevant information to get through to the good stuff.
I suppose it takes making the decision to pack in as much good stuff, the faster it gets. Focusing on your family and kids and stuff that really interests you. It might feel that you’ll get to the end quicker…. but it would’ve been one hell of a ride (excuse the cornyness of that!).
Nice piece. Suggested tips:
- Technology: It’s faster than we are. Trying to keep up is illogical. Pick and choose. Keep perspective. Most folks lead perfectly healthy lives when not obsessing over Twitter, etc. Some folks Tweet relentlessly (often too much). Good for them. Doesn’t mean it’s a requirement.
- Your age: At 42 I am determined to travel extensively and publish a book. Sure, the clock is ticking but at 22 I didn’t have money to travel and wasn’t a mature writer. And at 8 I had to wait until Xmas for a video game. Time crawled. Now I can go to Best Buy and grab an Xbox if I was so inclined.
- Work. BIG one. At the office, time moves the fastest for me. Your child needs you more, though. Put up boundaries. Prioritize. If you can, cut your work hours back. (now breathe… this sounds blasphemous) Might mean less money. Might mean slowing down career trajectory a bit for a while. I did it. I have more time, and live on less with no dip in quality of life.
Even though it gave me the shakes, I now save about $80 a month without cable TV – Internet, Netflix, Hulu. Bottom line – you wont miss anything critical. No more DVR telling me I have 200 hours of TV I must watch. No more channel surfing. And more time to catch up on Mad Men and read a book made out of paper
- Me Time
Who thinks this is selfish? That’s just silly. Maybe this is regional. I live in the northeast. In other parts of the US folks think we work too much, talk too fast, are far less patient, and somewhat rude. The French think we’re nuts. They know how to pace and enjoy life. It’s not lazy, it’s prioritizing wisely.
I managed to make it to the 90s without the Internet. I wrote letters, used maps made out of paper, and didn’t feel like I was getting enough news in real time.
The the exception of word processing on the PC. Electric typewriters were a pain. Rather use delete button than white out.