I'm sure all of us have heard people say that life passes people by quicker and quicker as they get older. Like many of you, I refused to believe that this was true when I was younger. However, when I realize that I'm 19 years old and a sophomore in college, I start to believe that maybe this phenomena is actually true. Life seems to be zooming by and a lot of times I have trouble trying to stop it. Preventing time from slipping away is probably one of the most challenging things to do, but it can be done. By first realizing that time is a social construct and using a few tips, the pace of what we perceive as time can be slowed dramatically.
Time does not exist unless humanity says it does. Yes, the earth and objects in our solar system make it easy to come up with a conception of time, but hours and minutes are mere creations. Day in and day out, a countless amount of people across the globe use "time" as a way to order their lives. Without time, there is no schedule... and that is something that humanity has come to rely upon very heavily. While we can't throw out our conception of time, we can surely use this information to realize that it's all in our heads. By categorizing time as a social construct, we can then move on to some tips that will help us use this knowledge to stop time from flying by.
The first tip in halting the rushed progression of time is to keep a schedule on your phone. This might be surprising to some of you, as keeping a schedule would seem to lead to worrying about the future and thus make time speed by, but it doesn't. This is a far better route to take than not having a schedule and just trying to remember things in your head. I always refused to write my schedule down because I had a knack for remembering things, however, there came times when I just kept thinking about what I had to do next and it led to a feeling of anxiousness. By putting your schedule in your phone or some device that will automatically remind you, then you can limit the time spent trying to remember what you have to do next. This idea of thinking about the future leads me to the next tip.
While it is always good to think about your future plans, it can be detrimental to your mental health if that is all you think about. I get it, a lot of us are worried about careers after college among a whole host of other things, but it will all come together if we live aggressively in the present. Enjoy the moments you have with your friends, your families and your colleagues. We might think about the future, but we always live in the present, and this is where all of our life's moments are created.
Don't let time control you, let yourself control time. Days and hours don't matter, only the moments within these made up frames do. Go out there and make memories, because that is what life is all about.
