Quote:
Originally Posted by pylon
One of the best analogies I got about this was from a guy I used to work with.
"When you are 20 things feel like they are moving 20 miles per hour, when you are 50, it feels like 50 miles per hour." I turn 40 next month, and I feel like I've been in my 30's for only a few years. It's frikking depressing when you think about it. I remember summers as a kid seeming like an eternity. You went back to school 60 days later, and everything seemed totally new. Now, a year just passes in the blink of an eye.
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Somewhere in a thread (maybe the important science news thread) on this site someone (Maybe Photon) posted a link to an article that this perception is actually a funtion on how memory works. It was a really good article and I can't find anywhere.
If I remember the gist of it it was that when you are 10 1 year is 10% of your life. When you are 100 1 year is 1% of your life so essentially it feels shorter because each year is less and less a chunk of your life.
Something to do with how the memories are stored and recalled.
On the perception side I think focusing on living in the moment helps. We plan so much and schedule so much that instead of enjoying each day we are planning for the weekend. When the weekend hits we worry about work on Monday. So we live lives in the future.