Why does time speed up as I get older? I’ve been thinking about this for some “time.”
My theory for why time speeds up came to me when I began taking three-hour trips out to the end of Long Island. In the beginning the drive was insufferable and seemed to take forever, but each time I took the trip it began to feel like it took less and less time. I began to realize that time was speeding up, not because I drove faster, not because I took a shorter route, not because I was in a more comfortable car. It was because I had seen it all before. Somewhere buried in my memory was every stop sign, every curve of the road, every tree. There was less and less to process. As a child, everything is new. We process everything. As we grow older there is less to process. Our mind (which in many ways is our clock) ignores everything around us, because it has seen it all before.
Now this is just a theory. But I wonder what would happen if we begin to do different things, to break up the routine of our lives, to notice new things, to read new books, to learn a new language, to learn a new skill, to meet new people, to eat different foods - - will time slow down for us?
Another theory is the ratio of time to life span. When we are one, a year is equivalent to our entire life. When we are ten, it is one tenth of our life. So on and so on. I believe as we get older the brevity of life becomes more and more apparent. The weight of our life shifts to what has passed rather than what is to come. My solution to counter this is to believe and live as though I will have a longer lifespan, that I will live to be 125. So, I eat well. I exercise. I stay positive, and in so doing, the weight of life left to live increases.
Maybe the truth is found somewhere in between both theories. Or not. But, I believe it does. And so today, like yesterday, I will do new things. I will see life differently. I will take care of my body. And in so doing, I will hopefully slow time down.<!— google_ad_section_end —>
