Our perception of time is a curious thing. Remember when you were a kid and summer seemed to last forever? You got out of school and you had an entire 3 months to do whatever you wanted. Three months felt like forever when you were in the 5th grade. But, when you are in your 50s, summer goes by in a blink.
I have never seen a study on this, but I have always had a theory that people individually perceive time as a percentage of their age and experiences. Therefore, when you are 2 years old, 3 months seems like a long time. Well, it is 12.5% of your life. That is a long time! Over the next 3 months you will experience 12.5% more life. You will also likely learn lots of new things and have many new experiences. Those are distinct markers in your life that make a lasting impression.
But, for a 45 year old, 3 months is only 0.5% of their life. In addition, a 45 year old person will likely not experience anything “new” over the course of 3 months. They have already had 540 months of experiences by age 45. Therefore, of course 3 months seems to go by fast.
We are all experiencing an exponential decay of time the older we get. Of course time is not "speeding up." But, it sure seems like it is. So, when you hear things like, "Appreciate every moment because they go by fast," I think that is real and this could be an explanation of that perceived phenomenon.
1 comment:
Excellently written!
Post a Comment