Two Kinds Of Time
Two Kinds of Time
Have you wondered why waiting for the elevator for a minute, seems longer than a ten minute coffee break? Why it seems like a few minutes when you actually talk to your girlfriend on the phone for an hour? And why it seems like an hour when you are on the hotseat for a minute?
It’s because there is what we call physical and psychological time. Physical time is measured by the wobbling pendulum that swings back and forth or the vibrating atom or simply what the watch or clock says. Where as psychological time is the experience which minces and leaps with little regard to the clock or calendar.
Larger units of time such as months and years pass more rapidly as we age. The first twenty years of our existence are the longest half of our lives. They take up more room in our memory than all the years that follow. Like, you remember what happened in high school more vividly than what you did a year ago.
There’s a theory that a year to a five year old child is twenty percent of her lifetime whereas to someone who’s fifty, it’s a mere two percent. Thus a year seems much longer to a youngster than to an adult.
If we have a structured daily routine with schedules and appointments, time seems to pass rapidly. When days become as identical as beads on a string, they blend together and even months become a single day. No wonder why they pass so quickly doesn’t it?
To counter this, try to make your days as individual as fingerprints. Find little ways to interrupt the structure of your day.
Here are ways to “stop time”, to slow down the ticking of the clock. To make your days different from one to the other. Which eventually will make you feel that it has been a long journey afterall. With so much happened and so many things experienced.
Learn something new. Keep a list you’d like to learn more. Maybe it’s astronomy, JFK conspiracy theory etc. Set a deadline to go through items on your list.
Take a course. Register for classes in something unfamiliar like thai cooking, learn Portuguese.
Challenge your brain with something out of the ordinary to break your routine.
Experiment. Try something new. Make a list of thick red wines to try, attempt to make sushi or play bass guitar.
Keep a journal. Writing down your thinking process and experiences would prove that you live a full life. Documenting your achievements not just sort out the blur of years. So they won’t meld together in a meaningless jumble.
Have you wondered why waiting for the elevator for a minute, seems longer than a ten minute coffee break? Why it seems like a few minutes when you actually talk to your girlfriend on the phone for an hour? And why it seems like an hour when you are on the hotseat for a minute?
It’s because there is what we call physical and psychological time. Physical time is measured by the wobbling pendulum that swings back and forth or the vibrating atom or simply what the watch or clock says. Where as psychological time is the experience which minces and leaps with little regard to the clock or calendar.
Larger units of time such as months and years pass more rapidly as we age. The first twenty years of our existence are the longest half of our lives. They take up more room in our memory than all the years that follow. Like, you remember what happened in high school more vividly than what you did a year ago.
There’s a theory that a year to a five year old child is twenty percent of her lifetime whereas to someone who’s fifty, it’s a mere two percent. Thus a year seems much longer to a youngster than to an adult.
If we have a structured daily routine with schedules and appointments, time seems to pass rapidly. When days become as identical as beads on a string, they blend together and even months become a single day. No wonder why they pass so quickly doesn’t it?
To counter this, try to make your days as individual as fingerprints. Find little ways to interrupt the structure of your day.
Here are ways to “stop time”, to slow down the ticking of the clock. To make your days different from one to the other. Which eventually will make you feel that it has been a long journey afterall. With so much happened and so many things experienced.
Learn something new. Keep a list you’d like to learn more. Maybe it’s astronomy, JFK conspiracy theory etc. Set a deadline to go through items on your list.
Take a course. Register for classes in something unfamiliar like thai cooking, learn Portuguese.
Challenge your brain with something out of the ordinary to break your routine.
Experiment. Try something new. Make a list of thick red wines to try, attempt to make sushi or play bass guitar.
Keep a journal. Writing down your thinking process and experiences would prove that you live a full life. Documenting your achievements not just sort out the blur of years. So they won’t meld together in a meaningless jumble.
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