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On The Perception Of Time

and why we often lose the sense of urgency being older

Don't wait, design and act today!

Yesterday, I had a very interesting conversation with two friends who are also parents and doctors. Don't worry, this is a short one, to make you think about something else than building a project or running a business šŸ˜€.

Thereā€™s this theory that we perceive time (and other things) based on the amount of ā€œitā€ we have experienced. That's how we basically perceive scarcity and uniqueness.

When focused on time - it means that to kids, a year may feel like an extremely long period of time because it constitutes a big part of their overall experience with life. 

On contrary for adults, a year may feel like a month that just passed by, because theyā€™ve already experienced many of these, hence the current year is just a small fraction of their overall life experience. And that diminishes the perceived length of time.

Now you are thinking - that means I feel I have less time, so everything is more urgent and not less! I agree, at first, this may look counterintuitive to my initial claim of losing agency when being older. But itā€™s not.

Iā€™m sure you see it everywhere: kids want to do everything now! If not right now, then today! That sense of urgency comes from the fact that, for them, having to wait for a week or let alone a month feels like the eternity. And nobody wants to wait for eternity. You better do it now. 

Meanwhile, look at us adults; for us, when you say next week or next month, it basically feels like pretty soon. Hence, we donā€™t rush into doing things now, and we donā€™t feel we are going to miss something. Do you have that feeling?

Iā€™m intentionally ignoring all other biases and bad habits that we, adults, have; sayings like - at least you can look forward to it, itā€™s wise to wait, you have to wait for the good thing, etc., and very unhealthy assumptions that things (like your health, the world order, opportunity for connectionā€¦) will be the same tomorrow, next week or next month - are helping to excuse the postponement of things.

Anyway, I feel like I'm pretty action focused (better done today then tomorrow - is my usual saying) but when we discussed this "time perception" topic, I caught myself thinking: "this is a great reminder for evaluating urgency in your plans".

I'd be curious to know what do you think about this? Just hit me up on Farcaster or X!


I hope you found something interesting in today's post. If you liked it - bring your friends. If you feel extra generous, you can MINT this writing and own it forever (that's why I added the gif)!

Let's connect on socials - find me as BFG (aka BrightFutureGuy)
- on Farcaster:
https://warpcast.com/bfg
- on X: https://twitter.com/aka_BFG

Check out my podcast with builders of novel blockchain solutions!
- Web3 Magic Podcast on Substack - https://www.web3magic.xyz
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or find it in a podcasting app of your choice.

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