Speed of Time

Wrote this from my hotel room in Indianapolis last night on my iPhone and a Bluetooth keyboard because I forgot my laptop back home in Chicago.

Honestly more fun this way anyways. Plus I cant remember the last time I was without my laptop on a weekday since probably my honeymoon.

Life is an adventure.

Sometimes we forget this. The tendency is to seek stability. Grow up and settle down. Avoid taking any scary risks.

But what if that’s the whole point? Truthfully I think life probably gets more scary when you stop taking risks.

I’d imagine that’s when every day starts to feel the same. And suddenly time starts slipping into the future a little bit faster.

There’s this great podcast episode from Radiolab from a few years ago called “The Secret to a Long Life”

It’s probably one of my favorites ever. I won’t spoil it for you (you should listen to it) but the idea is that time moves slower in states of novel perspective.

AKA trying new things, seeing new places, experiencing different flavors of the world. The brain is hardwired for patterns - it skips over the little things it thinks it’s already scene before.

Call it muscle memory, call it habit. Consciousness is our attention to the passage of time and the less you use your brain the faster it goes.

The beauty is that the anecdote is simply living life to the fullest. No matter where you’re currently at - 20 and 2 jobs, 40 and 3 kids, 60 and empty-nesting, 80 and retired.

Go a day without looking at your laptop. Take a new street on your way home. Wear your watch on the other wrist or eat your cereal with the other hand. It doesn’t have to be hard.

But of course it’s more fun when it is. Travel to a new city on a greyhound bus. Meet new friends at a conference you’ll never see again. Take pictures on a random street.

Set a reminder once every 6 months to listen to that podcast again and you’ll be set.

At the very least, try one new thing today before you forget.

Cheers,
Ramsey