The Illusion of Time
Time doesn't speed up. We slow down.
Have you ever wondered why childhood summers seemed to stretch on forever, yet now, entire years blur into a blink? Why a week now feels like a day used to? I believe I’ve found a theory — not one rooted in physics, but in lived truth.
Let me take you there.
Childhood: Where Time Was Infinite
As a kid, your biggest worry was whether your favorite show was on, or if the swings at recess were taken. School ended at 2 or 3 p.m. You started at 9. That’s a dream schedule by adult standards.
But more than that — you weren’t watching the clock.
You were living in flow.
You were learning new things daily, having fun, playing games, exploring ideas and places. Your brain was in a state of constant novelty — and novelty is how the brain tracks time.
When every day is different, your memory stamps it as meaningful. That’s why childhood feels so full, so long, so rich.
Adulthood: The Age of the Loop
Then you grow up. The fun stops.
You don’t notice it right away. It’s subtle. A job here. A bill there. Then two. Then five. Then you’ve got rent, groceries, WiFi, gas, insurance, subscriptions, credit cards, student loans.
Make money. Spend money. Repeat.
Every one of those things has a deadline. Every deadline becomes a psychological countdown.
The days blur into one another, because you’re doing the same thing, over and over. And the brain? It doesn’t remember loops. It remembers the new.
The reason time seems to fly now is because you’re no longer experiencing life.
You’re managing it.
The Psychological Prison of Bills
Your bills are not just financial. They are mental timestamps:
- [05] INTERNET_DUE
- [01] RENT_DUE
- [FRI] GROCERIES_REQUIRED
- [THU] PAYCHECK_PENDING
That creates a loop of dread and forces your brain into the future constantly. You're not in the now. You're not even in tomorrow. You're just bracing for the next due date.
And the more future-focused you are, the less memory you make in the moment. That’s why you blink and it's Christmas again. Blink again, and your birthday’s back.
It’s not that time flew. You were never here.
Time Is Timeless — But We Are Not
"I think that time flies the older you get because you forget how to be yourself. And you forget how to have fun. And you forget that time is timeless."
That’s the crux of it.
We’ve been conditioned out of ourselves. We traded play for productivity. We replaced creativity with efficiency. We swapped wonder for worry.
And in that trade-off — we lost our ability to feel time. Not because we aged. But because we stopped being.
So How Do You Take It Back?
You don’t need to quit your job or run into the forest (though, honestly, who hasn’t thought about it?).
What you need is to reclaim novelty:
- Try something new every week
- Take a different route to work
- Talk to a stranger
- Paint. Dance. Write. Sing.
- Create something for the sake of creation
Inject moments into your life that aren’t required. Do things that don’t have a deadline.
Because when you do? Time starts to stretch again. You feel present. You feel you. And the blur of adulthood starts to focus again.
What If Time Was Never the Enemy?
What if it’s not time that changed, but our relationship to it? What if your inner child was right all along — that life is supposed to be played with, not paid for?
And what if you could return there?
Would you? Because it’s not too late. You’re not too old.
Time hasn’t flown — it’s just waiting for you to come back.