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Why time seems to pass faster as we age

invertedpassion.com

21–30 of 272 posts

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#21
post #8

This is one of those things that seems true, but is it? They’ve presented no evidence whatsoever. Even the question itself carries with it an assumption. Does time seem to pass faster as we age? I bet you could find some people for whom it does not.

yeah im 31 and i don't feel it. I do however, remember being 22 and just marvelling that its been 5 years since (an event) at high school.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#23

Nice hypothesis. I've always thought that it had to do with the percentage of life already spent. When you're a teen, an afternoon counts as 0,004% of your whole life thus far. In your mid 30's, it gets down to 0,001%. So to me it's only fair that it feels to pass four times faster now. But this is just a random thought.

100% this. The older you get, the shorter a minute or an hour seems to be. When I was 12, an hour was an interminably long amount of time to spend in a classroom. Now that I’m 42, it’s barely long enough to take a decent nap.

Life is cruel that way. Can hardly wait for how quickly it passes when I’m in my 70s or 80s…

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#24
post #15

I've always rationalised it as: When you're one years old, 1 year is your whole life. When you're 100 years old, 1 year is 1/100th of your life.

That's the explanation I came up with for myself, too. As humans, we rate most things not in absolute but in relative terms to what we are used to (see studies about happiness or how rich people don't realise how wealthy they are when they don't leave their bubble). Why should we perceive time differently than in comparison to our timescale?

It even distorts logical processing, things like what is true and what is possible are also according to what (is known to the individual observer, or the culture they're embedded in) currently exists.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#25
I have been able to avoid this by just immediately switching to something else when I feel things are getting too comfy. Doing things that are not comfortable seem to stretch time for me. It works so well that for me (at 50) time is moving incredibly slowly and I like it that way.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#26

I've always rationalised it as: When you're one years old, 1 year is your whole life. When you're 100 years old, 1 year is 1/100th of your life.

The older you get the less you learn and the less new things you learn. Days are becoming repetitive. Looking back at last year contains the same information as 1 week when you were young.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#29

I have been able to avoid this by just immediately switching to something else when I feel things are getting too comfy. Doing things that are not comfortable seem to stretch time for me. It works so well that for me (at 50) time is moving incredibly slowly and I like it that way.

I also do the same. Spent a bunch of time scaling a B2B company, and now I'm doing a consumer app intentionally for an intentionally different challenge.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#30

I've been journalling for 10+ years. In addition to forcing me to actually write down what happened that day, reviewing old entries provides a feeling of history that makes life feel soooo long and so rich. I can review my now-wife's rocky courtship and feel grateful we made it. I looked back 3 years ago and found the day our children were conceived :D (we have twins). I can review the anxieties of my PhD years, etc…

It's great to hear journaling helps you reflect on actual passed time.

For me, I never get around to revisiting old entries regularly. How do you motivate yourself to do so?

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