Editorial: Time Flys
Your parents always told you that time would start flying by when you got older. When you were young and the summers seemed endless, this was hard to believe for sure. But I suspect you might be able to relate to this concept of time speeding up at this point though along with me.
I truly do not know where the past 10 years went. We know Covid and the shutdowns messed us up for about 4 years but it is still difficult for my brain to calculate it all. Of course, marking the time slots and events between each colonoscopy might help.... lol. But seriously, how does the brain measure time? For many of us goal setters, we can mark time with our achievements along the way but when there is lack of achievement, we tend to compress time back to when we set those goals because it seems that nothing happened since then. The passing of time can be very different for different people depending on what you think about and the activities that you are engaged in.
The summer is coming fast and furious, a time when we might want to reflect back to our New Years resolutions. I for one am trying to catch up on words that were not spoken, relationships that need reconnecting and habits that need to be changed for the better. I am making time to work some of this stuff out. Tops on my list is to try to be healthier, eat right and lose some weight. I can see how I mark the time it takes to lose a pound, so that has actually been helpful in the process to be able to forecast my results and get back on track if I don’t meet my calendar deadlines. I can see the progress right on my calendar.
Scientists are not sure how the brain tracks time. Are there brain cells with the job of counting off the hours and days like an internal clock? What they do agree on is that the brain has difficulty with longer periods of time. We have all heard that time flies when you are having fun. It also seems to drag on forever when you have a boring or dreaded task. Emotional events, even when months or years past, seem like only yesterday when you lose a pet or someone close to you, or experience some other family, personal or news event. The brain might even be using a variable impression of time because the event was so powerful and memorable. It is helping us make sense out of the fact that it will take longer for us to heal from this event.
Researchers seem to boil it all down to what they refer to as intervening memories. The number of memories that you have between events helps us to mark the time. Parents can relate to this when watching their children grow and experiencing all the nose bleeds, winning soccer games, new and larger shoe purchases, etc. vs maybe a friend's kid who's life you were not really involved with and who seemed to grow up so fast.
So, did the time fly by because you never took that yoga class or failed to start writing your life story? The completed resolutions that should have marked your accomplishments for the year did not happen so now suddenly it feels like the door for the year or decade is slamming shut. Whether or not you label them as resolutions, if you met your goals or challenges throughout the year, the brain could mark the time with those memories and accomplishments within your perceived time.
The takeaway here for me is to set some attainable goals, get them done, and then have some fun. I would rather be happy that I accomplished some goals along the way. It takes just as long!
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