I want to share a few experiences with you and leave enough space for each one of us to draw the needed lessons. It is the authenticity of thinking that helps us do so.
We have all experienced the following:
- Spraying perfume but sooner than later the scent fades. The aroma lasts for a short time.
- You eat something that makes you feel your mouth is smelly and sometimes horrible. You want the smell to fade but it resists and lingers for a long time.
- You meet with your friends and you feel the time just running. You are all joyful retrieving old memories but soon than wanted time is up and you depart. The joy seems like perfume with its aroma lasting for a short time.
- On the other end, you are engaged in a written exam. You feel time is running away and what is left is hardly enough to answer all the questions. Once the exam is over the heaviness of worries that you did not have enough time to answer all questions properly makes time go slowly as you wait impatiently for the final result.
Time does not go faster or slower. A minute is a minute no matter what your perception of feelings is.
It is how we respond that makes time feel different. When we are happy we want time to extend to enjoy it more. It does not extend and we feel time slipped away.
When we are worried or anxious time does not go slower. It is our perception that it does because we load the seconds with heavy anxiety for fear something bad might happen.
I tend to believe that in all the previous examples our distorted perception of time results from the point of emphasis.
When we are happy we wish the time would stop and extend so that we may have fun. Instead of being in the NOW we become worried that the dawn may be gone until it is gone and we feel we did not enjoy it. The fact is we were not in it which makes us feel so.
When we are worried we focus on our worry and make it sound heavier and darker. We live the anxious moments by making them more worrying and heavier. So, we feel time is going slow.
It is about what we focus on. Do you agree?