Posted on 27 Oct, 2010 -
Those Were The Days, Oh Yes They Were The Days
7 tips for slowing time down and enjoying every second of it more
Why maths lessons were interminable - and why time seems to speed up as we age
Dear Reader,
I am constantly amazed by, grateful for and almost bamboozled by…
... days.
Days?
Yes, days. Because just think about them for a minute. Is there nothing that we are more rich in than days? Hundreds and thousands of them filling up our lives likes sweets in a sweet shop. So many, in fact, that we become so complacent about them. Yet each one is like a gift. So different from the last. So rich in its own colours and events and peculiarities.
Just yesterday I was amazed to open the door in the morning to discover that the wind the night before had filled the space in front of the house with a huge pile of leaves - all of them, like the days, so different from each other, in colour, shape and size. Small, thin red ones. Curled up brown ones. Some still green and bigger than my head.
Every day that we have the good fortune to live is such a different feast of experiences and treats - emotionally, visually, atmospherically. And each with its own different series of events.
When I wake up in the morning, are my mood and the things inside my mind not slightly different from what they have been on any other day? Does the phone ringing at 10 not have a slightly different sound? And when I run down the stairs to answer it, is the sound of the voice at the other end not a totally unique and individual event?
Even the dreams that we have. The thoughts that we have… Is the person sitting here now holding a small bone perfume bottle in her hand having read an article on Chinese art not really quite different from the person who was peeling the skin off some pears just two hours before?
Then why is it, I wonder, that we are always moaning about how quickly time or the past month or the past year or even our lifetime has passed?
Why DOES time seem to speed up as we age?
Time, I like to think, is not something that can readily be recalled which is why we often feel that it has slipped through our fingers.
We can look back and remember snatches of certain experiences, events or sights - but to recall all the time that we have had the pleasure of living would surely take as much time to remember as it did to live?
I also get a little bit cross and uneasy when I hear people say that time speeds up as you age. To try and relieve some of the queasy feeling that this thought gives me I have been flicking through a book on time called ‘Making Time’ by Steve Taylor - and having a few more ideas of my own on the way.
There are a few possible potential reasons for our perception that time is running out faster as we age (one, which I’m not even going to cover, is contained in this sentence).
One theory, for example, is that the older we get and therefore the longer we have lived, the less significant in terms of size and importance each month becomes. When you are two, let’s say, a month is still a huge chunk of your life and in that 30 days you will have learnt so many new things and seen so many things that you have never seen before. By the time you reach 70, a month represents a mere 0.12% of your life.
There is also the fact that a lot less newsness happens as we age - and the more newness we have, the more memories are created. Time slows down (or seems to take up more space?) when new things happen or we step outside our normal routine for a while. When you come back from holiday, for example, it can feel that you’ve been gone much longer than a fortnight. The time occupied by holidays and special events seem to take up much more space in your memory than the blurr of the normal periods of time.
As Steve Taylor says in his book: “It’s interesting to speculate that this slowing down of time may be one of the reasons why novelty and unfamiliarity attract us so much, and why we like to go ‘away’ as much as we can, either for day trips or holidays. The new experience gives us a kind of intensity and makes us feel more alive, but it may also give us a sense of freedom from time.”
Change refreshes us. We enjoy a sense of newness. It makes us feel new too. It makes us feel fresh. Not jaded.
Time passes quicker when we’re absorbed in what we’re doing
It is also the case that we become a lot better as we age at knowing what we enjoy and keeping ourselves busy.
We all know how slowly time passes when we are waiting for a doctor’s appointment or at an airport. Yet three hours can feel like five minutes if we are absorbed in an activity such as doing a jigsaw puzzle, playing a video game or watching an exciting movie.
Time, the experts say, passes quickly when we are in states of absorption. And as adults we spend most of our lives in what you might call a medium state of absorption - otherwise known as being busy.
Medium absorption, says Taylor, “means being engaged in an activity which occupies your attention and stops you being aware of your own thoughts and your surroundings, whether it’s making a meal, writing an email or running a newspaper shop.”
And that is perhaps one of the funny things about life: we learn to enjoy keeping ourselves busy because we fear the way time drags on when we’re bored. But it is exactly this busyness that makes time appear to speed up in such a way that we moan about the too-fast passing of time!
The positive side of this is that being absorbed in our life can mean that we are happy. If we are actively absorbed or really concentrating on an engaging activity, it usually brings with it a “sense of well-being and makes you feel more alive and energised”.
So what can we do to slow down time?
If you feel that time is speeding by you too fast and you want it to slow down, here are a few ideas for you to try:
Arrange to do different things in your life to break up the blurring of routine and add more things to remember. Imagine, for example, if you were to get a job that involved spending the next year travelling around the world, spending a month in twelve different countries. How much longer would that year feel compared to the next 12 months you’re about to live? You might not be able to go to those lengths, but organising exciting new experiences will certainly make the next year stand out in your memory.
Concentrate, in particular, in enjoying the visual feast that is always available all around you. As Taylor says about children: “Their heightened perception means that they’re constantly taking in all kinds of details which pass us adults by - tiny cracks in windows, insects crawling across the floor, patterns of sunlight on the carpet, and so on. Even the larger-scale things that we do also observe seem to be more real to them, to be brighter, with more presence and ‘is-ness’.”
Avoid activities that put you in a state of passive absorption such as watching television, playing video games or idly reading newspapers. While active absorption is energising, passive absorption can be draining and makes time pass in a dull blurr.
As the philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau says: “If you want to lengthen the perspective of time, then fill it, if you have the chance, with a thousand new things. Go on an exciting journey, rejuvenate yourself by breathing new life into the world around you.”
Avoid seeking activities that serve only to kill time. Instead of seeking outward distractions to absorb us, become absorbed in pure time, in pure perception, or in pure being itself.
Avoid routine and repetition, seeking instead to do as many things as possible that are unfamiliar.
Spend time just listening to music, just watching people or just handling precious objects in your room. Live fully in this minute now.
Do not, however, become obsessed with this endeavor. Take pleasure, too, in the familiar because humans need stability, safety, love and belonging more than we do adventure.
Best wishes
