Time Creates Perspective

My family and I are nerds, and we have nerdy friends. This probably does not surprise you. For example, in a recent conversation, we had a discussion about the mathematical reason time goes faster as you get older. Yep. For real. I’ll explain the conversation shortly, but the reason I bring up time is time creates perspective. And in rough moments, we all need perspective to carry us through.

Now on to the mathematical perspective of why time goes faster as you get older. Bear with me as I give you the essence of our conversation. It goes like this: if as a one-year-old, you look back at your life, your first year represents 100% of your life.

At two, you look back and your second year of life represents 50% of your life, and so on. When you are 35, and you look back on year 35, it represents 1/35 or 3% of your life. 3% of something gets used up a lot faster than 100%, so time goes faster.

There you have it – the mystery of life. These thoughts about the speed of life have triggered thoughts about how time creates perspective. When we are young adults, we have decisions that seem momentous. Where should I go to college? What career should I pick? Who should I date/marry? Should we buy a house?

In the moment, those decisions are momentous. We feel the weight of the decision differently than we do at older life stages, where we realize most of our decisions start us on a path but don’t define our path for forever. When we’re young we feel like the decision is a forever decision and a path to one finalized destiny.

While time feels faster as we get older, our perspective gets broader. We see high drama moments and we realize we’ll weather that drama, just like we did other dramas. Knowing crazy-heavy emotional burdens will change and lessen in different seasons of life.

We know that there’s suffering in life, and that suffering will shape us, and we’ll survive it. When we’re young, we don’t have the perspective and breadth of insight to see how we could possibly survive, but once we have experienced it and survived, we catalog that experience and pull it out later in life when another experience shakes our world. An experience that because we know we’ve survived before, we know we’ll survive again.

When we sense time has sped up, we can trade that time for perspective. Feeling your life stretch before you, as a young adult, is amazing. The possibilities are endless, but so is the weight of our decisions. Seeing time speed by, and tempering that speed with perspective, gives us purpose and agility.

Both being young and older are both valuable, and I wouldn’t suggest trading one for the other. However, if you are in a moment where you aren’t sure you’ll make it through the current crisis, look around you talk to someone who has been there. Learn from them and take in their perspective. They have an amazing lens and view to share with you.

If you are working with someone younger, who feels the full weight of a heavy decision, remember you once felt that same weight. Empathize with that person, offer a little perspective, and respect them for where they are in life and for how big their emotions feel in that moment.

Time flies, not only when you’re having fun, but as you gain perspective and purpose. If you want to learn more about this and other nerdy topics and thoughts, come join one of our evening dinners. We’d love to hear your theories on life.

 

Keynote speaker, trainer, and consultant, Sarah Gibson, helps organizations leverage the power of communication, teamwork, and diversity to improve engagement and transform teams. To buy her book or inquire about her speaking programs, please visit www.sarahjgibson.com.