I hear a lot of people making that remark, that the years go by quicker as you get older.
For me, at least, it seems like that’s only the case if nothing much changes in my life in that year.
To me, years seem to feel like they go slower if there’s lots of new/different things happening.
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We only really perceive time by how much we’re adding to our memory, if you work a 9-5, have a stable routine, and no real changes in your life, well you’re gonna lose a big chunk of your life as your memory treats all that like one big singular chunk.
If you’re doing multiple different things, seeking out new experiences, challenges, talking to new people, learning new things, keeping active, etc etc, time will effectively slow down for you.
Take the COVID period, that’s 2 years that basically vanished for me, stuck inside with lockdowns, boring as hell IT job with long hours, unable to go anywhere, it was just a blur that feels like a month. Then take the following year, starting doing things again, socializing, being active, getting a new job, moving house and more, the year felt wayyyyyyy longer than most ever have.
So the older you get, it’s a choice if you decide to let it be boring, and that’s going to shorten your life more than you’d expect.
Because they are increasingly smaller fractions of your lifetime. When you are 5, each year is 1/5th of your entire life. When you are 25, each year is only 1/25th of your life. Humans do not have any absolute sense of time, we can only measure it’s passage in comparison to other things, and while the time it takes for the seasons to change is unchanged, so a year “is” the same duration, chronologically each year seems like a smaller and smaller amount of time because each one is smaller in proportion to our experience.
Cause each year is a smaller portion of your entire life. And not much is new any longer. And after the hump, physical changes accelerate.
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Because when we start out we start out empty. 65 years later our glass is getting nearer to being full. You can just feel it. Somedays I don’t know how old I am. I am like 59 and then it dawns on me 69. Time just creeps up on you.
Every year is a smaller fraction of the life you’ve lived, i.e; 1/30 is smaller than 1/29, etc
Because when you’re 10 a year is like 10% of your entire life so it feels like years are really long. When you’re 50 it’s quite a bit less so it feels like years fly by. Also there’s probably something to be said for things not changing very much year to year as you get older too, as you say.
Someone once told me every new day is a smaller fraction of your life than the previous one.
When you are 2 years old, 1 year is half your life. When you are 10, it’s a tenth. When, you are 20 it’s half that.
When you look back on your life, wach new year is a smaller part of your whole experience.
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