Time Of Your Life
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Well said Mr. Bueller. But have you ever stopped to think, why life seems to speed up the older we get? How amazing could it be to really live in the moment, to see that there truly are no ordinary moments.
When addiction distracts us from our purpose we lose track of time and so many other experiences we could or should have had. Putting yourself on an addictive time out may lead us to believe we can delay time, yet time will not wait. As the fog of using begins to lift a real fear and concern grasp our minds as we look at time wasted. That fear begins to shape our plans, dreams and goals as we think there may not be enough time left, everything seems to be moving so fast. We long for the times early in our childhood when everything felt like it was moving slowly. Hours seemed like days and summer vacations never ended. We can get this back Athletes, chances are if you are part of AIIA, it already has.
Intense moments of your life are remembered as lasting much longer than the times that were relatively dull. Psychologists say that the reason for this is our brains take deeper and richer memories of events that are novel, or events that are intense than the ones that aren’t. When your experiences are intense or unique you’re not remembering more things about it, you are making more copies. Rather than just making normal memories during intense moments the amygdala in your brain gets involved and also remembers things. The amygdalae perform primary roles in the formation and storage of memories associated with emotional events. Many people believe that is why intense moments are remembered as lasting longer.
This phenomenon becomes quite mind blowing on a macro scale. Think of it this way, when you are a one-year-old baby, that one-year of life represents 100% of your life. But when you turned two years old that second-year was only half your life and the next year you live through is only a third of your life. So by the time you turn 80, one year only represents an 80th of your life. Those percentages are important because they may explain why your childhood felt longer but as you get older the years seem to fly by. You have more peak experiences when you’re young. You first learn a language, you first see your mother, you first learn to walk, and you have your first kiss. These are all deeply, richly remembered by your brain and so later on it feels as if they took longer to happen.
Now here’s what’s really mind-blowing. When you turn 80 years old and take a look back at your life, the point that feels like the middle isn’t your 40s it’s actually your early 20s. The good news here is the more novel things you do, the more things you see, more places you visit or travel to or people you meet… the slower time feels and the richer your life becomes. So go out there and do something amazing, something weird, and something new. Meet as many people as you can, build and invest in friendships, relationships and above all, get out of your comfort zone. Life will slow down and you will enjoy it more.