Why does time seem to speed up as we grow older?

When I was young, I perceived time as something that moved slowly. It crawled as I waited for a school year to end when I would then be released to the freedom of the summer holidays. It crawled as I waited to leave the education system, and throw myself into the great beyond. It crawled as I worked my way towards a career, a family of my own, a house, and identity as a full fledged adult.

But then time sped up, at first slowly, and then gradually faster and faster. I can remember 20 years ago as if it was yesterday. And the scary thing to me is that 20 years from now, I will probably be at death's door, since I am 64 years old, about to become a so-called senior in another month.

When we are young, we want time to speed up. When we are old, we want time to slow down, unless we are suffering with no way to escape the suffering.

More memories to compare with the present. More things to do and less time to do it. Time is relative. Spend five minutes kissing and five minutes l listening to a sermon and see which one seems longer.

a reply to: droid56

Because at 5 years old 1 year is 1/5th of our life. Whereas at 20 1 year is only 1/20th of your life. And so on. Time seems to go faster because compared to the life you lived so far, is how you judge the amount of time you perceive at that point of time.

If you're aging ,and time is speeding up too much for you, get a job in a machine shop. It'll slow the days right on down.
Doing something to get thrown in county jail is equally effective.

It's because the older you get, the smaller the percentage of your life a year is. When you were 1, a year was 100% of your life, at 10, a year was 10% of your life and if you live to be 100, a year will be only 1%.

I think you have to be old to understand. Are you old?

a reply to: droid56

When you`re young, all things are relatively new. When you become older, you have seen most things so they don`t get that much attention of you anymore. Because of the attention you gave to almost everything when you where young, it looked like time was going slower.

Here`s link which explains it :

Why Time Goes Faster as You Get Older

www.psychologytoday.com...

I noticed that when i hit 21 time seemed too accelerate and speed up and get away from me like never before, some days im like woah where did the day go! But in our adult life we are alot busier aswell and have alot more going on that consumes our time.. I do wish time would slow down though, especially when i see how quick my kids are growing up its way way too quick!

a reply to: droid56

It's because you "think" more than you did when you were younger. Ever had the feeling, that time is slow? it's the opposite of that ... it happens when you act on instincts alone, and don't have to "think" about it.

When you're older, you are constantly thinking ... and you have a thousand times more connections in your brain to compare with, when you were younger.

a reply to: droid56

because you seen it all before and don't pay attention anymore.

As people already said it is all about perspective. When you are little everything takes a larger percentage of your life to happen. And in the same way, everything is a greater percentage larger than you are. So, time seems longer, stuff seems bigger

a reply to: droid56

As we get older the synapses in our brains form fixed pathway's, they are more efficiant but less flexible, the total number of brain cell's reduces and unused pathway's become dormant, we focus on longer term thought's such as tomorrow, tonight, when I get home from work, next year etc, we tend not to notice the little thing's and having seen them before they are no longer fascinating to us, but mostly our brain slow's down.

A child every breath is new, every colour, sight, sound, spider in a web spinning and catching his lunch, the rain falling, the cloud's with there infinite shapes and imaginary castles floating in the sky, every moment is so long, the world seems to huge and our small place in it is massive, the garden is an entire world and beyond the undiscovered territory await's, a tree is huge and a rope swing become's a space fighter but our mind's are growing, learning, adapting, making new pathway's several time's over only to eventually lose the one's we use the least, our brains have far more new cell's and are faster but far less accurate, tomorrow is another world and today is all there realy is with the time from breakfast to lunch seeming to be so long and a single lesson in school take's for ever but at home our mother's and fathers are waiting (for the lucky one's with loving parent's).

Time is an illusion but children are more awake when they are awake, as adult's we forget to learn, we sleep walk creatures of habbit neither really awake nor asleep.

a reply to: droid56


Hahah Wait until you have kids!! pooff....gone!

I've been thinking the same thought before. When we are young children, we live happily in the present. The thought of past or future do not bother us. We just are. If you try to be very aware of living in the present, you will notice that everything is not very fast, and your day will be eventful.

I always thought that once you get over the hill, you pick up speed.

Time speeding up as you get older does have its advantages.

I don't know how I would get through a single 12 hour nursing shift with my childhood perception of time.

a reply to: droid56

I look at it like gravity , when you're a kid it's all up hill so slow , then from your late teens to your early 40s you're on the crest of life , after that gravity takes hold and it's all downhill so the quicker it goes.

Make the most of each day , Carpe Diem.

a reply to: droid56

I am old, though not quite your age, and I agree with you. You do have to be old to understand. I think all these posts touch on aspects of the phenomenon, but none quite explain it. I am learning new things all the time and trying to keep my eyes open and experience new things. But the years are just flying by now. It was just winter and now I fear summer will be over almost before I have time to experience it. I guess I'm just too busy.

When we were younger we all had dreams of what we wanted to be when we got older. Some of us even told ourselves that we can take our time, that we can wait one more year to grow up. But as we get older, the business of life started to get in the way.....pushing those dreams to the side. When we got to the age where we didn't have to work so hard to get by, store up a savings for retirement, etc..., those dreams started to re-emerge. When that happens, you feel like you have to rush and hurry (like you did when you were trying to make ends meet) so you can try to make those childhood dreams come true.

It all comes down to this: Very few people accept death as a part of life. They make busy work throughout their lives in order to try and prolong the inevitable, try to drive it into the back of their minds so they don't think about it. As each day passes though, we realize that we are one day closer to death. The older we get, the more pronounced that realization gets. Our fear of that, and the busy work we make to try and hide that fear, gives us the perception that there just isn't as many hours in the day as we need. That time is moving too fast.

Slow down. Let go of your fear of death and realize that you did the best you could with what you had. No one goes to the grave having accomplished everything they wanted to. The graveyard is full of people who didn't have the time to die. Don't be one of those people.

www.dailymotion.com...

originally posted by: droid56
When I was young, I perceived time as something that moved slowly. It crawled as I waited for a school year to end when I would then be released to the freedom of the summer holidays. It crawled as I waited to leave the education system, and throw myself into the great beyond. It crawled as I worked my way towards a career, a family of my own, a house, and identity as a full fledged adult.

But then time sped up, at first slowly, and then gradually faster and faster. I can remember 20 years ago as if it was yesterday. And the scary thing to me is that 20 years from now, I will probably be at death's door, since I am 64 years old, about to become a so-called senior in another month.

When we are young, we want time to speed up. When we are old, we want time to slow down, unless we are suffering with no way to escape the suffering.

Great thread,i have pondered that many times.
I have also noticed though that when i travel and stay in other countries apart from my own,time slows down.
2 weeks in a foreign country seems like 6 months in your own.