Why I feel time is moving faster than usual?

Time is passing much faster than I ever realised that it would. This year specifically, I feel it passed so quickly, like it was never there. This feeling of “time flies” has its impacts in more ways than we realise. It is really creeping many of us out.

The feeling that time is moving faster today than in the past is a common sentiment. This acceleration of time is almost imperceptible each year. Looking back two years ago does not feel like four years, but like a bunch of memories that seems like a year at most.

Time advances every moment we live. When we were teenagers, time seemed never-ending, and as we grew into youths, we found that even half an hour looked like an age.

When we ask why time moves so fast, we should also know what the time is. My pursuit for the ‘time concept” reached me at Alan Burdick’s Why Time Flies. The book takes the readers through an exciting journey in time — from the smallest measure to the largest.

From the history of how time is has been measured at the planetary and atomic levels, the award-winning book also opens up a well of fascinating queries like, “Are we born into time, or is time born into us, or does time tick faster as you grow older?” Though the book is not an easy read, and is mostly serious and scientific, Burdick’s research helps us as it takes us to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris, the place where time is set.

Time is an earth-based thing, though early humans didn’t have the same sense of “time” that we have now. “Time is an intangible thing that could be viewed from the past, the present and the future. The past resides in memories, the now immediately transitions into the past, and the future relies on imagination," it reveals.

Time flies, but mostly when you’re not really looking at it. Days and nights seem to be shorter, and our watch goes faster than it used to. Birthdays, anniversaries and holidays all seem like they are racking up quickly. “It feels like Christmas was both yesterday and a million miles ago. That’s all in your head. Time is set because we implicitly agree on it,” Burdick explains.

Ask any elderly person, he or she will tell you that time moved so fast. At the same time, it makes you wonder why this should be so, given the fact that you always find them sitting in the same chair all day long.

For myself, I can say that life has passed at just about the speed necessary. It’s been two years since I retired. The days are going by very fast. I get up, do a few things, and suddenly it is evening.

My career as a working journalist spanned nearly four decades. When I finally retired, I was ready for the new phase. While maintaining my regular habit of reading and writing, I explored new ways to pass my time, which landed me in farming.

As a grandfather, I try spending time with my two grandkids. I love to see the two little angels coming home and spending time with them. It’s a great pleasure, as I missed a lot of this during the period of my employment.

As you grow older, all the seasons may come and go faster. This happens as a matter of the time that you have lived regardless of everything else. None of us knows how much time we have, but, interestingly, we do actually have a lot of control over how we experience that time.

Despite all this, let me still say, time does not pass either quickly or slowly. It simply passes, as it always has. It is not out to get you. It is your perception of time that needs to change, if you are not happy with it.