“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” (Steve Jobs)

It’s no secret that our relationship with time changes as we age. When we’re children, time seems expansive, sprawling. Summer vacation is vast; the span between Labor Day and Christmas feels interminable. It takes forever for that special event we’ve been anticipating to finally arrive.

A few decades later, time turns on us. The seasons fly by. Birthdays accumulate like dead leaves in autumn, and instead of savoring time, we just want to slow it down.

It’s not our imaginations. Time really is perceived differently by children and adults. One reason is simply the obvious: as we age, each year is a smaller percentage of our life. When you’re ten, a year is ten percent of your lifetime; but when you’re 60, it’s less than two percent.

But there’s more to it than that. Continue reading →