TIME FROM A KIDS PERSPECTIVE
Have you ever had the feeling that the older you got the faster time seems to move? I remember back when I was a kid, waiting for those special days like school holidays, festive holidays and even my birthday but from a kids perspective I remember waiting for what felt like eons for these special days to come, only to have them fly past at the blink of an eye and me having to go back to waiting again.
Another example being back when I was still schooling, being a student all that I wanted was to be done with school, I could not wait to turn eighteen and then twenty one. I remember the wait being dreadfully long but something very strange had happened after I was done with school and I started working. My perception of time began to change. Days began to feel like hours, weekends started to feel like day and years began to feel like months, next thing I know eighteen years have gone by since i left school and began working. How did all that time go by with out me even noticing it?
After doing a little research, I quickly found out that I am not the only person experiencing this conundrum, there are many other people specifically middle-aged and older adults who have the same perception of time that I do. The feeling that time starts to speed up the older a person gets is one of the biggest mysteries but thankfully due to research there has been some intriguing findings.
A survey had been conducted on five hundred people between the ages of fourteen and ninety-four by the University of Munich regarding the pace they felt that time was moving for short duration's like a week, a month and a year. Most of the participants reported that the time passed by fairly quickly however when it came to longer duration's like a decade, a pattern emerged where the older participants perceived time as moving much faster than the younger participants.
According to the research that was conducted, older people feel that way because humans can estimate time from two different perspectives, one being a prospective vantage view meaning that an event is still yet to occur and a retrospective view meaning the event has already passed by.
Our perception of time varies depending on what we are doing and how we are feeling at that specific point in time. I am sure you must of heard the saying "Time fly's when you are having fun" however time also fly's when you are busy at work, and you are too busy to notice the time flying by as you are pressured by deadlines and consumed by stress, caught within a vicious and endless cycle that consumes you day by day.
The video below addresses some of the possible causes of time being speed up as well as several possible solutions to help you slow down your perception of time.