I don't know how you all feel but it seems the older I get, the shorter time gets. It seems like when I was a kid, an hour were as long as days and months were like years. Now that I'm an adult, time just flies by. An entire semester of school passed in what seemed a few weeks and these weeks are passing like days. What's happening to me? Has my perception of time really had such an effect?
There's some understanding to this though. When were young, time was actually longer and slower to us because we hadn't been been alive that long. Think about it. You're one year old. One year. A year has been your whole life up that point, so of course a year seems like such a longer period of time that it does when you're 20. When you're 20, a year is only 5% of your life, it doesn't seem long once you've lived through so many years. There is a lot of evidence to support this. Think about when you see a relative you haven't seen in 5+ years, the next time they see you, they'll say something along these lines "Oh my! You've grown up so fast! It seems like just the other day you were like this tall [exaggerates height]", and though it could be a simple exaggeration, sometimes it does seem like younger children are growing up much faster than you remember growing up. I still have clear memories of when my younger sister was in elementary school and it doesn't feel like it was that long ago but, it was, she graduates later on this year.
Some may believe that adults having more work to do than children is an explanation for why time seems to pass so quickly, but i don't think so. There have been days where, instead of working, I lazed around and put off work until a later time.
I wake up early [8:00am], and tell myself I'm going to start work but i just lie back down and sleep for a little longer. I wake back up [11:00am] wow the day is winding down i better start work. I cook something, then eat [12:30pm]. Sit down and watch some TV before I start on this work. After watching TV and lying around for a bit[3:30] I get up and look over the work, but i don't start it. I find myself tired so i just rest for a little while [4:30]. Before I know it, it's past 5pm. After 5pm the day seems to pass even faster, the sun goes down, the street lights come on and the day is almost over, still no work done. I attempt to start [7:30pm] but I'm hungry. Before long it's after 10pm and the day is almost over. See time flew by and i haven't done a thing all day.It seems that our need for time has an effect on how fast time passes.
Let's say it's Sunday night, you have to turn a project in on Tuesday, you have the entire Monday to type your project. Now, 24 hours is more than enough time to finish this project, but it doesn't seem like that. You can start your project early in the morning and work diligently through the day and though you've made a lot of progress, you're not quite finished but the day is nearly over. Let's say it's your day off from work, you plan on taking this whole day to relax and enjoy yourself. You want to get the most out of this day because you know you have to go back to work tomorrow, but low and behold the day of relaxation flies by, because you needed this time to relax. Let's say you're having a bad day at work, everything that can go wrong has already went wrong and it just keeps getting worse. You desperately want this day to be over, but what happens? The day drags by, hours become days and this day has become an entire month. You get off at 7:00 it's 6:00, you find something to busy yourself with. You work on this busy work for what seems like hours, you may have put in some over time. You look up at the clock. What time is it? 6:20 and it just drags on even slower from there. *edit* Trust me it wasn't worth reading.
There could be many reasons time speeds up when we get older. Maybe time really is getting shorter or maybe not. The only thing we can do is: best utilize the time we have and under no circumstance, waste time, it's non-renewable; you'll never get it back.
"When you have job, there's too much time, when you have a career, you ain't got enough time"
-Chris Rock
