Time…. Please slow down a bit!

Is it just me or has this year passed by incredibly fast… way faster than any other year? I can’t wrap my head around the fact that it’s about to be 2026 and you can’t make the argument of lock-downs and staying home causing this because there were none of that this year. It feels like we were just ringing in 2025 yesterday and now we are entering 2026, as if the days, weeks and months seem to fly by as we age.

You might be in your early twenties today, but one day you will wake up and see a thirty-year-old staring back at you in the mirror.  The next day, you will be forty. The years fly by and in brief moments of realization, we pause to wonder where the time went.  How did a decade pass without us realizing it? It seemed to be gone in an instant. The fleeting nature of time forces us to reflect on our lives and find ways to make the most of the precious little time we have.  

Time flies, whether you’re having fun or not and it is flying faster and faster every day. The flow of time has nothing to do with ageing. It depends on how fast you are moving. Time does appear to slow down or speed up depending on what stage of life you are in. The reason is the frequency of memorable events that you have at that stage in life.  Good times seem to fly by quickly, while bad times takes forever. That is, our perception of time makes it go by quickly when we are doing things we enjoy, but it seems to slow down when we are bored or stuck-up doing things we dislike.  Our reflection of time may be skewed depending on what we are doing.

When we were younger, it seemed like the school year lasted forever, and summer break lasted a week.  Time flows the slowest when you are a child. We often hear about children who just can’t wait to grow up! Because in that stage, almost everything is new and hence leaves a lasting imprint on your memory. You get introduced to the rosy and beautiful world, of course, under close supervision of your parents. You have mostly happy and memorable events and very few painful ones. The “world” seems to be often an unfamiliar place filled with new experiences to engage with. So that period of time felt much longer and time appeared to pass very slow. 

As we get older, we get more and more familiar and comfortable with our surroundings. We don’t notice the detailed environments of our homes and workplaces. The more comfortable and familiar we get with our day-to-day surroundings and life experiences; the faster time seems to run. We start coping with the ugliness of the world. We no longer remain the free bird. We have to consider others dependent on us, even in the smallest of our decisions. We cannot lead our life the way we want.  As our children grow up and leave and we slowly descend into old age, our memorable life events are reduced to a minimum. We think we have already tried most things there is to try in life and are no longer interested in the things that are remaining. We start to withdraw and limit our life experiences, depending on how much our body permits.  It is as if we wake up one morning and notice that we have gone from middle to old age and here is where we feel time is going really, really fast.

A week now feels like a day, as does a month or a year. Each day slips by faster than the day before.  It’s normal to feel like time speeds up the older we get. When we were teenagers, time seemed never-ending and as we grew into young adults, we find that even half an hour looks like an age. Do you remember how summer seemed to last forever when you were a child, but as an adult, it is gone before you even have a chance to enjoy it? Days and nights seem to be shorter, and our watch goes faster than it used to. Birthdays, anniversaries and holidays are going to seem like they are racking up more and more quickly. It’s another year and another Eid or Christmas or Diwali around the corner in a blink. 

When I was young, I had never been bothered by the passing of the years or my youth. But now I bother, not for me, but for my parents, who are slowly becoming old. Those years passed so fast—much faster than I ever realized they would.  As we get older, we feel the passage of time due to the relative proportion of time in our lives.

Many relate it to life being faster. Actually, it is you who has slowed down, when you feel time is passing too fast.  It is you who have lesser activities, been through lesser events or life moments and hence you feel it is going very fast. When you get older, the metabolic process in the body starts slowing down. So, time does not get faster, but the process in the body gets slower and slower. We also hear people say, when we were child, years seemed to pass so slow, in so-and-so year we did so many things.

Yes, it passed slow, because you were fast. Time is calculated on how you spend it, how you structure it, the routines you build to define it and how you experience life itself.  The widespread feeling that time is speeding up can be particularly stressful as the new-year approaches. It can leave us feeling out of control, fixating on all the things we have failed to achieve. Time can speed up or slow down depending on what we are doing and it can shrink or expand when we look back at it.  Time flies when we are having fun and drags when we are bored.

I have often noticed some senior citizens for whom One day seems One month and One month a year. They feel as if they are stuck up. They want to leave this boring world but they can’t.  And the time stops for them.  They feel lonely thinking of their old memories to kill the bloody time that simply don’t move!

Time is money. If you don’t value time, it will go like a big strong wave which comes in force and goes away leaving some footprints.  Time passes away when we cross a certain age and when that time is gone, we just regret that we wish we could have done this and that.  We say that we have time to do, and we wait, but time doesn’t wait for anyone. It will keep going on. Time gives you only one chance, and you have to make the best of it.  You cannot go back and reverse time. Every second and every opportunity should be used efficiently, meaningfully and sensibly, no matter how less you get it or if you have enough spare time.  Don’t wait for anyone to be with you. Make yourself your company and enjoy the spirit of your time.

Time is a great healer. Yes, time can help but it doesn’t erase the pain. As humans, erasing pain is non-realistic. Pain and hurt are inevitable. Pain doesn’t disappear but fades to the point where it doesn’t hurt so much. Time lessens the sting, but the scars remain forever. It doesn´t heal wounds but you learn how to deal with them to the point that it doesn’t influence your day-to-day life. It rolls on and on, eroding our memories, chipping away at those great big boulders of misery until there is nothing left but sharp little fragments, still painful but small enough to bear.

Did you ever feel that you are in the worst possible situation and that you feel absolutely helpless and miserable and then you go to sleep hopelessly crying and then you wake up the next day and realize that that feeling has already kind of disappeared?  Well, that’s it. With the passing of time, our pain too reduces. Life is glorified and dramatized too much. Sorry to burst the bubble, but in reality, the day-to-day life of any person is mundane, it is regular and the beauty of life is in finding the intricate moments of joy in these everyday moments. When I was younger, if I had a bad day, I used to feel like I am the only sufferer in this whole world. Like life is testing me and that it is unfair.  I would put myself into every possible sad song and imagine being in a TV drama.

I mean, a lot of us do that especially when we are young.  But also, at that moment, we forget about ourselves. We forget how strong we are, about how many things there are to look forward to and that this thing that we are suffering over, is actually quite temporary. Our life is more than what we are feeling in the moment. With time, people’s feelings change, their opinions change, things change and situations change. And most importantly, we change. We cannot predict tomorrow. We can only give things time and not try to sabotage anything from our end. A good night’s sleep can do more wonders than you can imagine. Staying away from things that trigger our negative emotions for some time helps us think straight or at least stops the twisted thoughts. Time is going to smoothen out things, whether you realize it or not.  Also, time does more than heal. There’s been plenty of times I wanted something I didn’t need, I kept putting it off and eventually I realized I didn’t want it anymore.

I agree, sometimes it’s too easy to get lost in the cherishing, too easy to hold desperately and fearfully onto every moment, dreading its passing. When everyone tells you “These are the best days” and “it goes so fast!” it can actually strike fear into your heart, knowing how fast each moment has already gone by.  At that time, I really feel like telling – Time please slow down or just stop. Let me live these moments a little more. Let me find peace, clarity and genuine joy in the moments I am in. I wish time could linger in these peaceful moments and stay where happiness lives.

One way to stop time from flying by is to make a point of savouring every moment. One must find the time and space to do the things that one is going to remember and spend time reminiscing about good things that has happened to you. By being mindful of how we spend our time, seeking out new experiences and breaking out of our routines, we can lead more enriching lives and make the most of the time we have. Have faith in time, have faith in you. You are stronger than you think. And if you are in a difficult situation right now, remember that even if the situation is permanent, the feeling is temporary. You will get through it and see sunshine at the other end very soon!  The best way to stop time from flying past you is to be present in every moment. Stop scrolling through your phone and pay attention to the world around you. Stop thinking about everything that’s going to happen and focus on what is currently happening.

There comes a time in life when we think it’s all over. Our efforts, our struggles, anything we do seems useless. That’s the time to remember these magical words – “This too shall pass” – Nothing is going to last forever. Neither the good things nor the bad things!   Whatever situation we are currently going through in life, is temporary and will change. You might experience many happy moments and sad times, supports and difficulties, successes and disappointments, but everything passes away with time and you become a better person.  After all, nothing in life lasts forever.