You Can’t Stop Time, But Your Time On This Planet Could Be Different

It's right before the pandemic, and a college professor friend has invited me and my wife to give a guest talk to her creative writing class.

I’m standing before a room full of 19-year-olds staring back at me. They are looking to me to impart some wisdom.

It’s been some time, but I’m more familiar with being the student than the teacher. My other half embraces the attitude of saying yes to everything, and as it seemed to be working out OK for her, I decided to give it a shot. 

Standing before these students, I flash back to the few teachers who had changed my perception of the world — or at least took it up a notch. I wanted to offer similar life-altering insight. So, I focused my talk on the subject that fascinates me most: Time.

I scan the audience. It’s a tough crowd. Here's how I began: Writing is the juxtaposition of time and space. I wrote it down on the chalkboard, underlining for effect. I turned to see the reactions. Except for a few keen students, most had tuned out. One kid in the back row stared at his phone.

I suddenly got it — how can you know time when you’re not yet old enough to experience its relative nature?

Have teens lost some of their best years to the pandemic? Because that's exactly how Craig's 14-year-old daughter feels.

Time's Evolution

When I first gave time a second thought, I was four, standing in the driveway of my great aunt's house. It was a snowy late afternoon. I was looking up at the slate-grey sky. Flakes would twirl and spin on wisps of wind for what seemed an eternity before finally landing and melting on the concrete driveway. Repeating this observation led me to an inescapable conclusion: I would live my life in snowflake time. How could I possibly bear the monotony of it all?

"The 15 years from pregnancy to teenager have been the fastest I've experienced."

I was reminded of that memory one wintry afternoon in my late teens while visiting my father. He gazed out the window at the falling snow, white as his combed-back hair. "Where does the time go?” he asked. “Days are like minutes now. Years fly by like pages in a book." He exhaled and watched the snow fall. I didn't know what to say.

But it got me thinking — did all older people perceive time this way? What if time were an ocean? You begin your journey across it, for years seeing only the horizon and endless seas ahead. At some point, you make out a barely visible distant shore. As you get closer, time feels accelerated.

I didn't realize it then, but my father knew he would soon reach the other side. Looking back, I could see it in his eyes.

Time passed. When I became a parent, there was no stopping it. The 15 years from pregnancy to teenager have been the fastest I've experienced. As most seasoned parents will attest, it's not subtle. One's perception of time condenses when you spend what seems to be every spare moment raising a child. But what if we could learn how to expand time? What an extraordinary gift if I could instill in my kid an appreciation of time in their life.

Craig's daughter wants to drive to L.A. when she's 16 — leaving him to wonder if stories of his adventurous teen years were to blame.

Breaking Down Time

For a period, I obsessed with figuring out why time seemed to speed up as I aged. I identified three factors that make time pass quickly.

Days lived: Your second day of life equals your entire lifetime. After that, every ensuing day becomes a smaller fraction of the whole of your existence. 

Aging neurons: Neurons are responsible for receiving sensory input from the external world. They're remarkably efficient when we're young, capturing detailed imprints of the world in rapid succession, but that ability diminishes as the brain loses efficiency. It's like frames in a film — the more frames captured, the slower the motion appears. Capture fewer frames, and time accelerates, like newsreels from a century ago.

Lived experience: Nothing kills time like repeated experiences. For the most part, our boring routines become so normalized that we don't realize our past has become a grey blur, making it difficult to distinguish one day from the next. Change it up and you reclaim time through new experiences.

"I hope my ongoing reminders of living every moment will make a difference in my daughter's life."

These concepts may be too complex for a young mind to grasp. But I believe you can instill an appreciation of time an early age with strategies like trying new activities, saying yes to new adventures, living in the moment and reminding our kids that time is the one thing in life you can't replace. Reinforce the value of time early on, and I believe it will pay off throughout life.

I finished my guest talk with this: Nothing in your life will leave you so gobsmacked as to how quickly you will go from being the youngest person in the room to the oldest. So, make every single second count. I repeat my words for effect. It’s hardly profound and isn’t meant to be. It’s simply me sharing my lived experience.

The kid in the back row still doesn't look up from his phone. But maybe, just maybe, somewhere down the road, he'll realize that time is precious. And perhaps that will make a difference in his life. Just as I hope my ongoing reminders of living every moment will make a difference in my daughter's life.

Only time will tell.