Everything is connected
Why does time pass so quickly? I like to think about larger issues of the passage of time, and the way things connect. This awareness helps us better navigate the transitions of our adult development. Some of you will find these posts interesting, and others may look forward to more practical content. “All in good time, my dear, all in good time…”
Those who know me are aware that I’m a student of history. It is a personal interest as well as a professional one. Part of my graduate work was in history, and I teach a course in History of the United States in the 20th Century for adult degree students at George Fox University. My top “Strength Finders” characteristic is “Context.” All my life I have been interested in the past, and how it informs the present and even the future. Like reading a map, we don’t know where we’re going if we don’t know how we got to where we are. I like to think about what life was like for people in earlier times, and how their choices affect our lives today. It makes me think of how our own choices will affect the lives of future generations.
The importance of Context
Many of you are familiar with the StrengthsFinder personality assessment. This focuses on capitalizing on your strength areas, not trying to fix your weaker ones. My number one personal strength is “Context.” The definition for this is someone who, well, likes history (it’s a thing, and there’s a NAME for it!). Actually, not just history per se, but the ability to make connections from the past as part of my leadership and strategic thinking. By looking back, a Context person sees connections, patterns, and blueprints emerge. Seeing how these things inform the present, I gain confidence and perspective for current decision-making. I think about how we became who we are, and likewise, who we will become in the future.
So, you need to know that about me, as you’ll find that I often make references to history, time, and how lessons from the past inform the present. I can’t help myself!
With that in mind, I have a question for you:
Do you ever wonder why time seems to pass so quickly? The older you get, the faster it seems to go. I think about this a lot, and there are reasons for it. Time does not actually move faster, of course, but our perception of time changes as we age.
One way to look at it is this…
When you were ten years old, a year represented just one tenth of your life experience, and you don’t even remember the first several years. No wonder a year seemed so long at that age. A summer seemed like a year, remember? I remember watching the clock in my fifth grade classroom, yearning for the end of the school day. The minutes seemed like hours! Now, a whole morning can fly by at work, and I wonder where the time went.
Later, at twenty, a year was one-twentieth of your total experience. Time passed differently, faster than when you were a kid. At twenty, a year seems like a lot, but it goes faster than it used to.
At fifty, well, a year starts to feel small (and more so at 60, trust me). And yet, you start to feel the weight of the reality that you have fewer of them left, and each year seems more precious.
Another way to look at it..
Count backward the years of your current age.
I, for example, was born in 1957. So I have a personal memory of the last sixty or so years of history. On one hand, that time has passed quickly. On another, it is actually a pretty long time.
If I go back another 62 years from 1957, it takes me to the year 1895! Wow, I’m only two of my lifetimes removed from the 1890’s. Talk about being stuck in the 90s–the 1890s.
Then, if I go back yet another 62 years from 1895, I’m in the year 1833. Like a time machine! Andrew Jackson was president, the telegraph didn’t yet exist, and the first railroad tracks had been laid only three years before. Think of that–I am only three of my lifetimes removed from 1833, and I have a personal recollection of nearly a third of that time. Somehow that puts the passage of time in a different light, doesn’t it?
Try it yourself. Even if you are only 40 years old, counting back three of your lifetimes would take you 120 years back to the year 1900. Ok, maybe I beat you at 1833, but you get the idea. 120 years is still a pretty long time. Your lifetime to this point is in fact a long time, even if it seems to have gone quickly. And it will seem to go more quickly with each year that passes.
So think about it, whatever your age, and put your own life in the context of the way we perceive time. The COVID-19 crisis reminds us of the fragility of life. Life comes with no guarantees. Adjust to the idea that life seems to go faster with time. We live each day, not in the past, not in the future, but now, in the present. We can’t slow time down, but we can be mindful of how we are using it. Our lives are long, on the one hand, and yet they pass so swiftly by.
How are you living yours, and are you living it as the best version of yourself?
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