Have you ever noticed how the passing of time seems to accelerate as you get older? I mean, all my life I have been hearing “old folks” telling me, “oh my god, time goes by so fast… the last time I saw you you were only this tall” as they stand there holding their hand up at waist height. I remember thinking to myself, “what the hell are they talking about, the last two hours at this (insert family/formal event here) seem like an ETERNITY… and who the hell is this old lady anyways?” You have the same memories, of that I’m certain; even if you didn’t have the foul mouth/mind I had as a young lad.
Well, the time has come in my own life where I just caught myself playing the role of the old man telling one of my best friend’s kids how much he grew since the last time I saw him… while he looked at me with the “who the fuck are you again” look. Come on, who doesn’t remember uncle T? Being in my 30s, it’s a hard pill to swallow that I’m no spring chicken anymore. First they stop asking for your ID at the liquor store, then kids start giving you funny looks when you think you’re being cool, then you’re getting your good luck charms ready for bingo night at the VFW.
The relativity of time and our perception of how fast time passes is something that only comes to mind as you get older. My wife and I and one of our good friends had a conversation the other night that really put everything into perspective. We have all thought about it before, but I had never put words to it so elegantly as I did that night. Ironically my friend’s neighbor who was outside walking his cat (yes he was really outside walking his 18 year old, hobbling cat…) happened to be half-eavesdropping on our conversation and chimed in with exactly what I am about to tell you almost word for word. It is the best verbalization of why time seems to speed up as we get older that I have been able to come up with so far.
When a person is lets say 3 years old, one year’s passing equals 1/3 of their whole lifespan. Since a child only really becomes conscious of their individuality and existence as a person and starts thinking thoughts with words instead of only riding their emotions somewhere in between baby and toddlerhood, their conscious memory is even less than that. On the contrary when a person reaches age 30, each passing year is only 1/30 of their lifespan. That same year the 3 year old goes through is consciously experienced as passing ten times faster for the 30 year old.
Think about it. Each passing year as you age makes up a smaller and smaller fraction of your total conscious timeline and memory. When you get to be 60 years old, time will be passing twice as fast to you compared to the experience of a 30 year old. When/if you get to be 90, you feel like time just whizzes by so fast and so much change happens so quickly that you have a hard time keeping your mind anchored into the present moment. The 3, 30, 60, and 90 year old human beings all experience the passage of the same calendar year in dramatically different ways. Asking a 90 year old to sit in a room and quietly wait for 10 minutes would be like asking a three year old to to wait for 300 minutes or 5 whole hours! From their respective perspectives. Isn’t that insane?
The ancient elders were absolutely right when they said that time is a river flowing downhill. It get’s faster and faster as you get older and if you fight the current, you get worn out real quick. As time goes by in this world more and more change happens in each age compared to the preceding one. This is actually what the Mayans were timing with their elaborate calendar system, but that’s a discussion for another time. You can read statistics all over the place that tell you that every two years ten times more data is created than in the previous two. Mind boggling! Consciousness and data grow exponentially and not in a linear fashion. More opportunity and more information is made available to us every single day than has ever been thought of before on this planet.
Back to the analogy of time being a river, some people seem to be stuck in eddy currents where time stands still. This became apparent to me a while back after going away to college for four years and returning to my home town where nothing seemed to change. It became even more shockingly apparent when I moved cross country for two years with my wife and two little girls and then moved back to the Chicago area two weeks ago where my wife and I grew up. I stopped at a friend’s parents house where absolutely NOTHING had changed since high school. Same furniture, arranged the same way… same smells, same vibe in the house, family members sitting in their same spots where they were 15 years ago. The only thing that changed was the date on the calendar.
This slapped me in the face with the importance of conscious growth. You have to grow and change and learn new things ON PURPOSE. Otherwise the river of time will push you off to the side into one of these eddy currents where you get stuck in old habits where nothing changes and there you sit as a spectator. With the amount of change that has happened in my family’s life and in my own personal awareness, I feel like I have aged at least ten years in the last two calendar years but that’s a good thing. I’m in the best shape of my life and I am getting smarter every day ON PURPOSE; not because I’m lucky. I love roller coasters and I love white water rafting. I couldn’t imagine sitting on the sidelines watching the world blow past me. I hope you feel the same way.
Keep evolving a little every day in any possible way…
Time is not measured by the passing of years, but by what one one does, what one feels, and what one achieves.
-Jawaharlal Nehur
Each and every life form on this planet is a work in progress. There is no grand culmination to the evolution of conscious life. Every kind of critter from a bacterium up to a human being comes into the world with a certain hand to play. They play out their cards the best they can, learn as much as they can, teach what they can to posterity, and then it’s lights out until you come back around again (if you’re into that sort of thing). Success in the animal kingdom depends on the same thing as it does for us. It’s all very economical if you look at it. Life is simply trying to expend energy by making the best choices over perceived options to maximize safety, comfort, and growth.
It’s so ironic that every kingdom of life on the planet is fine tuned to it’s local environment the same way each instrument is tuned and timed to the same conductor in an orchestra. Everyone is playing like a beautiful symphony besides US, who are supposed to be the crowned achievers. There is quite a bit of truth to the whole story of man being tossed out of the garden if you read between the lines. When you stray too far from what is natural and harmonious your body, mind, and spirit all start to decay.
So what do successful people do that 97% of other people just DON’T DO? They merely sit down, decide to make a plan, and start taking steps in the direction of their end goal. THAT’S IT! There is no magic secret to changing your life. I know everybody at least makes it to the point where they say “ok, it’s definitely time… I know I need to change X.” Not everybody, but a good number of us make it to the point where we say, “in order to change X, I’m going to Y.” Here’s where we lose more folks on the path. These are the new year resolution people who make a change for two to five days then go right back to the status quo. Soooooooo few people actually stick with their plan UNTIL they get there.
The key to life is that childlike state. Remember to be CHILDLIKE and not CHILDISH. Keep yourself in the state of curiosity. Of wanting to learn a new musical instrument, or learn to scuba dive, or learn martial arts. Of learning a new skill no matter what it is to stay fresh and young at heart. Most importantly of all we need to teach our kids to be authentic to what they feel drawn to and interested in. Just imagine what your life would be like if you had been coached and guided to be the most creative and loving being. Teach our kids to do what they love and the money will follow their joy. When you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. Teach our kids the path to growing up at the BEING LEVEL and be the model for them to follow.
This is referred to as bullying and bigotry. Why then do we think it is OK to do the same thing within the confines of your own thoughts? Just because nobody else can hear or see you doing it doesn’t make it acceptable. The door swings the other way too. Constantly putting yourself down by comparing yourself to other people is like cutting and other forms of self harm, only you’re doing it to your mind and emotions.
This GOLDEN RULE extends into the mental realm. Don’t think about others the way you wouldn’t want them to think about you.
Just about every “normal” person you know is probably just an acquaintance. Once you get inside their hula hoop and break through their defenses, the jig is up and BINGO there’s that insecure, weirdo you knew was there all along.
These are people that you are always scanning and analyzing for clues and subtle signals; hints on whether or not they might be considered good candidates for access into the next level.
This is where you can even get to know somebody better than they even know themselves and they can know you better than you even know yourself. It can be an incredibly beautiful thing when you know what each other is thinking and know what they’re going to say before they say it. Closeness and connection are immensely rewarding to the spirit but we still do an excellent job at hiding our flaws out of the fear of rejection and abandonment but you can’t hide everything and definitely not forever. Sometimes the truth of what was being held back comes out in heated arguments and it’s too hard for the relationship (no matter what kind) to bear. When trust in this inner circle is betrayed lives get tossed into total upheaval. Long term couples break up, best friends go separate ways, whole branches of family stop speaking.
The innermost shell of your being is the story you tell yourself in your own head. It is the thoughts you think to yourself, about yourself when you are sitting awake at night. A history of perceived negative reinforcement from the outside world will program your subconscious mind to beat you up. You can be your strongest ally or your absolute worst nightmare. You can sit in a room full of people that love you, that accept you and it won’t matter because you can completely lay waste to your self from every angle. We’ve all been in the state of mind where you get to thinking “damn I’m such a loser, nobody really likes me, they’re all just pretending to like me, how could anybody love me after what I did, I’m so fat, I’m such a failure, I’m too skinny, I’m so fucking ugly, I’m too short, I’m too tall, I’m such a whore” and on and on.
It’s a scary mental state to be in and it causes a vicious cycle. Shitty thought patterns cause low awareness and shitty choices that result in shitty life experiences which… you guessed it… cause more shitty thoughts. Rinse and repeat. This is a process that has to be derailed and reprogrammed manually. It has to happen on purpose and doesn’t have to follow hitting the proverbial “rock bottom.” Rock bottom happens to be a funeral for too many amazing people on this planet so don’t let that be you or your loved one.
Why would you want to spend your time doing anything other than being yourself, and helping others become their own greatest version? You don’t have to quit your job or run away to do this. It starts right now. The world we live in is pretty damn accepting of just about anything, as long as you can get over your own fear and self doubt about it. You can be a gay, transgender, biker, vegan, who teaches Pilates and have all the true friends you can handle.