Have you ever noticed how the years seem to slip through your fingers faster as you get older? It’s a phenomenon that’s both fascinating and a little unsettling. Personally, I’ve always been intrigued by why time feels so elastic, stretching in some moments and sprinting in others. The 19th-century French philosopher Paul Janet offered one explanation: time appears to accelerate in proportion to the life we’ve already lived. For a ten-year-old, a year is a tenth of their existence; for a forty-year-old, it’s a fortieth. Mathematically, it makes sense, but it doesn’t fully capture the experience of time. What makes this particularly fascinating is how some years feel endless, while others vanish without a trace. The numbers don’t tell the whole story.
What many people don’t realize is that time isn’t just a clock—it’s a record, shaped by our memories. Neuroscientist David Eagleman adds a layer to this idea, suggesting that as we age, our memories become less detailed because we encounter fewer novel experiences. Routine thins out our recollections, while novelty makes them dense. If you take a step back and think about it, this explains why childhood summers felt interminable—everything was new. But as adults, when weeks blur into months, it’s often because we’re on autopilot.
From my perspective, this isn’t just about age; it’s about familiarity. The years that stand out in my memory are the ones where I either stepped into the unknown or focused deeply on something. For instance, my first year living abroad felt like a decade because every day was a discovery. In contrast, the years where I was busy but unfocused—juggling tasks, scrolling through feeds, letting days merge into a monotonous stream—those years are barely there when I look back.
A detail that I find especially interesting is the role of attention. Focusing deeply on a single task seems to stretch time in a way that novelty does. When I spend hours immersed in writing, the day retains its shape in my memory. But when I’m distracted, bouncing between tabs and notifications, the hours evaporate. This raises a deeper question: is the speeding up of time a result of age, or is it a consequence of how we choose to engage with our lives?
In my opinion, the key isn’t just seeking novelty—though that helps—but cultivating attention. Novelty is exciting, but it’s not always practical. Most of us can’t uproot our lives every year. What we can do is pay attention to the present moment, whether it’s a conversation, a task, or even a mundane routine. What this really suggests is that time isn’t something that happens to us; it’s something we shape with our focus.
If you ask me, a year of attention is worth more than a decade of distraction. It’s not about making every moment extraordinary, but about being fully present in the moments we have. The clock will tick at the same pace, but the texture of our lives—and our memories—will be richer. And isn’t that what truly matters?
