I have always been troubled by why and how life seems to go so much faster as we get older. I remember when I was 5, I used to imagine what I would be like when I was 20. I would be sitting there with my sister, probably playing with Barbie’s and just imagining how I would look like and what I would be doing when I was older. 20 years old felt so far away, so I would stop thinking and go right back to my dolls. Here I am today where 15 years flew by in a blink of an eye. When I was 5, a year felt like an eternity, but now a year feels like it goes by in a day. But why does this happen?
I believe there is one small, seemingly insignificant detail that is typically overlooked, but is the determining factor of the speed of time: it is where you are present. Are you present in the present, or are you present in the future? When we’re little kids, we are present in the present- so time feels as long as it is supposed to. But as we get older, we are so focused on the future, that time speeds by because we are always looking ahead rather than where we are.
I see this dilemma happen most whenever I’m in a situation I particularly don’t like. I always focus on the future. A year ago, I was in a walking boot and on a knee-scooter. I hated every single second of this. I was in pain. I was messed up delusional from my pain pills. I was miserable. As I was in class, I always looked forward to the time that I could be back in my bed resting. But even more so, I always looked forward to and focused on the day I could walk again. I kept my mind on the future, and guess what, that came and went with the snap of my fingers.
Think about it, we do this every single day/ week while we are in school or at work. On Monday we always look forward to the weekend, we do this to make the week go by faster by anticipating the weekend. And each week we always look forward to the next break, sometimes we are looking forward to our next stage of life, such as rushing to get married or buy our first house, or even just to graduate college.
So, I’ve noticed that the answer to my original problem is a problem in and of itself: we have a problem of being present in the present. But let me tell you this: if you learn how to be present in the present your life will be longer. Now I’m not guaranteeing that more years will be added to your life, but I am saying that a year will feel like a year again, so it will feel longer, and not speed by you like an 18 year old in a brand new Ferrari. I’m also not saying that you should never think about the future, it is good in it’s own context, such as when you need to plan, and make decisions based off of the future, and how your decisions will affect your life and other’s lives. This is when you can benefit by thinking about the future, but you should not meditate on the future. The future should only take up a small percent of your thoughts, not any more than 10%. Because anything more than 10% begins to encroach and steal from your ability to be in the present. Stop running toward the future, and enjoy the now. Imagining the future is not imagining reality, it is fictional. The only reality we have is what is now, right here in front of us.
We actually have a need for reality. Robert Nozick, a famous and respected philosopher that died at the turn of the last century, gives us a thought experiment to explain our need for reality. He gave us this idea: what if we could be plugged in to a machine that gave us everything we wanted perfectly: perfect spouse, perfect children, perfect food, perfect body, perfect job, perfect kids, perfect experiences, etc. no bad at all. Most of us would not choose that route. We want reality, even if it comes with something bad, and harmful, we want what’s real. Focusing on our future is similar to this idea, that we think of a perfect world, the perfect scenario of what could happen, when really we have a need to be here in reality. The future is merely a figment of one’s own imagination- it is not reality.
This is why in Matthew 6:34, Jesus tells us not to worry about tomorrow. He says tomorrow has enough worries of it’s own. When we worry about tomorrow, we are neglecting what’s happening today. Worrying also doesn’t help or change anything. The future is going to happen whether we worry or not. If it’s meant to happen, it will regardless of whether you’re worrying or not. So when you’re worrying, all you’re doing is wasting time in the present where you could be learning, thriving, or even taking action to prevent a future harmful event. When we are present in the present our lives are longer because we aren’t neglecting what is happening today.
It’s funny how often we value the destination more than we do the journey. We are always looking forward to where we are going rather than enjoying where we are at now. I know personally, my family always used to take road trips- no matter how far the destination- all 5 of us would pile in our mini van and get on the road. The first thing that comes to every kid’s mind is “are we there yet” because we think the actual destination will be so much more enjoyable that the journey getting there. Granted, in some cases that may be true, but we neglect the time, the 13 hours spent in a car with our loved ones that we could’ve enjoyed our time with, but rather we spent time with earphones in, listening to our own music, in our own little world, rather than enjoying the people who mean the world to us. I know I personally regret these times where I could’ve been present with my family because it was precious time I missed out on with my dad who died when I was just 13. And this is just one example of how the journey is just as valuable as the destination.
If the journey of life wasn’t important, Jesus wouldn’t have us go through it. If we were just supposed to start a family, or get a successful job, or simple graduate college, Jesus wouldn’t have us wasting precious time or breath by having us spend time in the in between. He wants us to learn here. He wants us to grow here. The journey is important for us to use in our future. Jesus has planned and purposed every moment of our lives- he clearly knows what he’s doing, and nothing is ever pointless with him, so why would we belittle him, and think less of his plan when he is greater and better than anything we can even imagine for ourselves? Don’t focus on graduating to get your job, focus on what you can learn today. Don’t focus on getting married, focus on the relationships you can pour into today. Don’t focus on retirement in 50 years, focus on working as hard as you can and enjoying life today. Don’t even focus on tomorrow, be here, right now, and see how you can learn and grow in this moment alone. When you’re present in the present, your life will be longer by slowing down time.
This is a lesson God has specifically been teaching me this semester. As we know, I won’t be back in the fall, because I leave in October for my year-long missions trip. So right now, that is my destination that I am trying to get to. God specifically told me that this semester at school is important, otherwise he wouldn’t have me here, so he put new things in my life while I’m here so that I’m not only and always focused on the future. He’s given me new opportunities, new friends, new activities to learn to take life one day at a time, to be present in the present, to not rush through life. He told me to stop running and to be here, to learn now, to grow and mature and pour in while I’m here. To not waste the time he’s given me.
Nearly 2 years ago, there was one night where I did a LOT of running. It was the summer before I started college, and my friend and I were hanging out. This one night, around 12:30am, we went over to the factory. Now the factory is literally an old factory that has been remodeled into a quaint small town shopping center. I love nothing more than climbing roofs, and that’s exactly what we decided to do this night. If we’re being honest, this was one of the easier climbs we had done, between climbing in the vent, and using a fence, we hopped right up to the roof. So we’re up here being silly, harmless young adolescents, enjoying the view and the feeling of being so high up, and then all of a sudden we were startled and jumped a little. Down below us, out came running a drunk old man. He has holding a handle and waving his hands in the air cussing us left and right trying to figure out literally, “What the f are you doing up there?!!” I turned and asked, “What do we do?” He said “Don’t turn or let him see your face, just ignore him and follow me.” So we slid down to the other side of the roof. We then were stopped. We heard sirens. We then saw a firetruck and police cars coming from down the street. We kept going trying to find a way down. So we made it to the back of the building with no way to get down. We were stuck. Until we looked around and saw a tree, he looked at me and didn’t even have to say a word because I knew exactly what he was thinking, so I looked at him and said “How?” he then explained that he would slide down it first and then help me. So he went down and I followed his lead and slid down too. We then ran toward the train tracks at the other end of the property to avoid the cops and firemen, we then ran to the apartments across the street. Now, our problem was that my car was parked in the parking lot there, so we ran around through a neighborhood, through some woods, across a creek, and then hid in the bushes of a house across the street and we sat there from 2am-430am watching as the cops continuously took 15min shifts patrolling the area.
This is how we look like in life sometime. We are always running. Running from something. Running towards something, running running running. We miss hours of our lives we could’ve enjoyed by simply taking time to stop and smell the roses. Now, in my case, I needed to run, to avoid getting in trouble- but once we stopped running, we actually enjoyed our time together. We sat in the bushes for two and a half hours. We learned more about each other than ever before. We didn’t focus on tomorrow. We couldn’t even think about when we left. By our circumstances we were forced to just sit and wait. To be present in the present. We appreciated each other’s company and time stood still that night. So in that moment, being present in the present made our life longer. By making time stand still.
So to sum it up, the first step to slowing down time is to stop running. Now, the second is one you have heard before, but it clearly hasn’t hit our ears yet since I’m sure half of y’all checked your phone even while reading this, but we need to learn how to stay off our phones. When we are on our phones, it puts us in a virtual reality instead of actually being present in actual reality.
According to flurry, which is an analytics firm based out of California, as of 2017 the average person spends about 5hr a day on their phone. I did the math and in an average 80 year lifetime, this would be 16.67 years of one’s life on their phone. This is nearly 17 years of our lives spent on our phone and that is clearly assuming that the time spent doesn’t increase over the years (even though it has increased by 20% just since 2015). Imagine how much slower time would be, because of how much more we would have (17 years actually) if we spent it in reality rather than on our phones.
The final step to slowing down your life and learning to be present in the present is to change your mindset. I mentioned this earlier, but I just want to reiterate how important it is not to dwell on the future. The future should not be your everything. It is good to plan, but that has it’s own time and place and it is not to spend more than 10% of your brain activity.
So the answer to my initial question: why does life get faster as we get older? It is because we are not present in our present. Our solution to this problem is to learn how to be present, and there are three ways to do so: not run through our journey; realize our journey has purpose, and is just as important- dare I say more important at times than the destination. We also need to limit our use of technology, especially cell phones. If you are with other humans, turn your phone off. Enjoy your company with real humans, don’t let it distract you from reality. And finally, change your mindset; don’t dwell on the future. Planning is good, but focusing on the future is not. Be present in the present to make your life longer by slowing down time or even making time stand still.
