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I'll tell you the worst thing. Far worse than anyone else here can mention.
Time is constantly accelerating. When you are 5, the concept of a year is nearly an eternity. But your perception of time changes the older you get. Every year is shorter and shorter. Like you are on a constantly accelerating ship headed to the end of existence.
I thought about this recently. When you're 5, a year is 20% of your life. When you're 50, it's 2% of your life. Not surprising it goes quicker.
I don't think that's true. Time is relative so it's only accelerating if you're in a comfy routine with fewer distinct points of reference. There's an easy fix for that.
I've hit a point where I can do a lot of the things I passed on previously because I was always busy or didn't feel like I had the money. It doesn't slow anything down. I can't actually remember all the things I've done. I don't regret doing all these things because I get reminded about them over time, but it's still just a fuller life, not a slower life. Things I "recently" put on hold have been waiting for years. Projects that were deemed critical at the time have gone unfinished, mostly proving nothing was critical.
And that's not to say to have a full life, you have you be bouncing off the walls from airports to other continents to concerts to festivals to soup walks to ski resorts to motorcycle rides to beaches to parties to home improvement projects to artistic endeavors. That's just my flavor, slotting things into the schedule as they fit.
From my perspective, I believe it is true. I'm only late 30s, and I've been filling my time with more "firsts" than ever before, but I can't remember the last time I ever thought "damn, time is really dragging on today".
I've got a relatively new career; I've been trying my hand at politics (was just 150 votes from winning an election this year!); I've been getting involved with volunteer work; I've gotten involved in activism, going to protests, anti-racism rallies, removing stickers, posters and flags placed to cause division and hate; I've been bonding with the most beautiful parrot my fiancée and I rescued; I'm teaching my son to drive; - the list goes on. My schedule is pretty relaxed, but whenever I look at the time of day I think "hell, how did that all go so quick?".
I've been making a few mistakes just this week because my brain has refused to update the fact that we're 5 days into July already and we're no longer in mid June.
I dunno. Maybe it's time perception, maybe I have early onset Alzheimer's, or maybe I have early onset Alzheimer's.
30s? You are still a baby. There is a long way to go my friend. There are literally no limitations on what you can do right now.
Your life sounds amazing. Glad you're doing things you love <3
Keep doing new and novel things. It helps!
Use it or lose it is true of the mind and the body. And it's better to burn out than to fade away (and no, I don't mean taking Kurt's way out).
Humans adapt. We have abysmal bandwidth, so we have adapted. If anything is normal you don’t notice. You reserve bandwidth for the unexpected. You already know how to react and what to do/feel regarding daily life.
Break rhythm
Yeah, the nervous system works by detecting deltas. Gradual changes can sneak up on you.
Absolutely, you stop measuring the passage of time in days and years and start measuring it in experiences. When you're young and everything is new it's absolutely full. The 10th or hundredth time you've done something you handle it more easily but it also starts to seem like one 'thing'.
Routine is the quickest way to looking back on life and feeling like it was the blink of an eye.
People can't afford experiences anymore
Time is literally accelerating according to scientific studies as well.