Why Time Moves Faster as We Age

You, Einstein, and the Theory of Relativity

How long did you have to wait between birthdays at that age? It seemed like forever. A year seemed like forever because it did last forever. No illusion or mental trick. When you turned five, to make it to six, you waited a year. And a year is a year. And a year will always be the same length of time. But when your five, a year is also a full 20% of your entire life. Yes, a year is always 12 months, but when you were five, a year not only seemed longer, you experienced it as longer than you do now because it was 20% of your life. Everything is relative.

How long does a year seem now? It depends on how old you are. Use your mental powers and think about that. You only know that as you age, time seems to go by faster and faster. You can't say what time exactly is, but you do know that it literally goes faster as you grow older. But you knew this.

Somewhere in your 20s, you realized the years were going by faster. By the time you were 50, if you are 50 yet, an entire year is only 2% of your total experience. To be more precise, 2% of your life experience. That 2% is not perceived to be nearly as long as the 20% like when you were five, but the actual amount of time as a quantity was the same in both cases. One year. By the time your 80 years old time actually does fly by.

The older you are, the more impact this mental exercise will have on you.

Stranger still is how time affects memory. Again think back to when you were five. There are some experiences or sights that you had when you were five
that are just as clear as the ones you had at 35. Strange that time has no effect whatsoever on long term memories but only short term memory.

Angelus Silesius, a 6th century philosopher and poet, thought the flow of time could be suspended by mental powers. He wrote this poem. See if has some value to you as you get ready to play with time:

Time is of your own making;
its clock ticks in your head.
The moment you stop thought
time too stops dead.