How to slow down time
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Is it just me, or is time going faster lately? This week my daughter had high school orientation. In a few weeks school will start, and then I’ll blink and it’ll be Christmas. Then I’ll blink and it will be summer again. I’m obviously not the first person to notice this. All my life I’ve heard people say, “It all went by so fast.” But despite this, it’s somehow still surprising when it happens to you. I guess I didn’t realize they meant THIS fast. The other day my accountant asked me how old my kids are now, and I told her my oldest is sixteen. “Wow.” she said, “So you only have one summer left before he graduates?” I knew this before she said it, of course, but it felt different hearing someone else say it. ONE SUMMER? That’s it? There are two things this has made me think about. The first is “How do I slow it down?” This might seem like a fool’s errand, but it doesn’t have to be. One theory of why time passes more rapidly as you age is that you stop experiencing new things. When you’re a kid, everything is new, so you take it all in individually. But as you age, you start to build habits. Those habits become grooves, which become ruts. Over time, your brain starts to say “I’ve seen this before” and lumps all the memories into one big pile. You forget your drive to work because you’ve made the same drive a thousand times. You forget the work itself because it’s the same thing you did yesterday. Before you know it, an entire year goes by and just gets lumped in as one vague, blurry memory called "2026". The solution is obvious: seek out new experiences. Create memories that can’t be lumped together because they aren’t part of a pattern. I’m doing this by taking more trips with my family, planning more weird get-togethers with my friends, and putting myself into situations where I’ll be forced to try new things. In fact, this weekend I’m flying to Canada to weld tallbikes with a band of artists. I've never done that before, so I doubt I'll forget it the way I might forget any other weekend. But even with new experiences, the most I can hope to accomplish here is a minor slowdown. There aren’t any real brakes on this train. Which brings me to my second thought. Time is running out, so I’d better make the most of it. If each individual moment is going to keep going faster and faster, I’d better make the most of the ones I have in front of me. I’d better stop waiting for the perfect opportunity to start working on my big idea, because that opportunity may never come. Instead I've got to use the time I have and place my bets while I still have chips to play. The same is true for you. If you don’t want to blink and miss the next 20 years, then you’d better start trying new things and stop waiting for the perfect moment. Here are two questions for you: 1. What's something new you can try this week to shock the system? What's a class you could take, a place you could visit, an acquaintance you could invite to lunch? 2. What's a project you've been holding off on starting? How could you take the first step this week? Happy Friday, friends. Make it a good one. Kyle Scheele |
Kyle Scheele
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