Why is it the older you become the calender just flies forward?

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7 Answers

Rooster Cogburn Profile
Rooster Cogburn , Rooster Cogburn, answered

Maybe because as we get older and retire, we don't watch the calendar so much anymore. I hardly do unless I have appts. I haven't even worn a watch since I retired. Time just goes by and I really don't think much about it anymore.

PJ Stein Profile
PJ Stein answered

I think because in our working years we are trying to cram too much into our life. Most adults spend 8.5 hours, or more at work. Add a commute time, which on average in the US is 25 minutes each way. So that is close to 9 hours each workday. Then you try to cram in housework, pet care, and family time into that and try to get 8 hours sleep. It seems like you are always playing catch up.

And as Rooster says when you are retired, you are home and don't really pay as much attention to the calendar. Also when you are younger you are always counting down to some milesotne. Anticipation always make time seem longer.

Jann Nikka Profile
Jann Nikka answered

I do because, I have a part-time job.

Otherwise, I didn't. I seldom left my home.

Community: I'm officially retiring March 1.

I've worked closed to 44 years. 😄

Ancient Hippy Profile
Ancient Hippy answered

Didge Doo Profile
Didge Doo answered

To a child, a year is a pretty high percentage of their entire lifetime. The older you get, the smaller the percentage, so any given period seems to pass more quickly.

On another tack, kids have less to interest them. They like to play, and why not? They're kids. One video game, one TV soap, one school day, blurs into another so that it's easy to slip into time-wasting boredom. (To a bright kid who understands, education is a challenge; for many -- and we've all seen the complaints from them on this site -- it is an imposition and stops them from "hanging" with their GFs, BFs and BFFs).  When we reach adultery >:-/ hopefully life takes on more purpose, if only from necessity; the interest we develop in everyday necessities causes the tempus to fugit more quickly.

An English writer named Colin Wilson likened it to "holiday consciousness". He said that when you're on holidays, you want to take in all the new sights, meet new people, do fun things, and time passes very quickly.

Of course, Wilson was no William James. Go read Tom Jackson's answer again.

Tom  Jackson Profile
Tom Jackson answered

This made sense to me:

William James would agree. In the 1890's, James' writings on age-related differences in the experience of time reflects both these themes. He wrote that in childhood, experiences are novel and distinct but in adulthood "each passing year converts some of this experience into automatic routine which we hardly note at all, the days and weeks smooth themselves out in recollection, and the years grow hollow and collapse."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/thinking-about-kids/201010/does-time-fly-when-youre-getting-old

Michael Poland Profile
Michael Poland answered


It is a little like going somewhere you've

never been over and over and over again.

The more familiar the trip gets, the less time

it seems to take.

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