Recently a friend of mine reminded me why time flies faster as you get older. He said that when you are young you have your whole life ahead of you, so it seems like it goes slower. When you are older you have little of your life and therefore goes faster. Perceptions are tricky. Why is waiting for the doctor seems so long, but when we are doing something, we enjoy the time flies by. My perception of what my narrow mind can do is amazing. Speed up time, slow down time. Time is something we all wish we had more of. Except depressed people think time sucks either way.
Depression is a wide subject I’d rather not discuss. Flow experience is what really makes time fly. Our focus is intense, and we lose time because of it. Writing is a flow activity I enjoy. Damn, it’s already 6 o’clock. Lose yourself and time will fly.
Gambling is a popular flow experience. When your winning, time is flying by. When you're losing and standing there watching the other person gamble the time goes very slowly. How we feel about what we are experiencing determines whether or not it’s a flow activity. An author named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explains “Flow Experience” as a balance of anxiety and boredom. No one can enjoy an activity for an extended period of time at the same level. We either get bored or frustrated. Some fishermen will tell you otherwise.
Self-Hypnosis I think is worth mentioning here. Like when you are driving and realize you can’t remember the stretch of highway you just drove through. Trust me you can appear quite normal in a blackout or under hypnosis, but for some reason our short-term memory doesn’t store it. Factory workers with all the repetition use self-hypnosis to deal with their long day. Or they make it into a flow experience by challenging oneself to do their optimum.
Either way the day can go fast or slow depending on ones’ attitude. My own theory is that if you stay grateful you can set yourself up to have more peak experiences and experience the “flow.”
I love your theory on gratitude!! I do believe being mindfully grateful blesses your life in many ways.
Back to self hypnosis and driving - my driving had been described as “oblivious”. I find my mind wondering and suddenly am way down the road with no memory of the driving in between. This does made the time pass faster, however can result in taking wrong turns and long short-cuts. I always thought this was multi tasking! lol. Self hypnosis, huh?