Happy New Year!  It’s hard to believe it’s 2025 when it seems like just yesterday, I graduated from high school. Boy oh boy, does time fly!  Over the years I’ve heard the expression “time flies,” a million times, but it seems like it flies faster with every passing year.

I’m a curious person. Does time really get faster the longer we live?  As I was surfing the internet (no doubt wasting valuable time) trying to figure out if this is true for everyone in their prime, I came upon Maximillian Kiener’s  very interesting website. Kiener expertly and uniquely explores the perception of time using really cool graphics! And now I know the answer to my question…it’s a resounding “Yes!”

I’m not going to tell you everything I learned because I really want to encourage you to check it out for yourself. It’s really interesting! Suffice it to say, we perceive time relative to the absolute amount of time we have lived. Say, if I live to be 100, on my first birthday, a week represented a fiftieth of my life but on my 50^th birthday, a year represented a fiftieth of my life.  I find this both fascinating and difficult to wrap my mind around, let alone explain it in a blog.  Bottom line, at my current age of 67, a year represents a mere 1.49% of my entire life.

Keiner also highlights some interesting parallels between time and money, including that time and money are both saved and spent. He notes that for some people, “Time equals money.” For me, time will always be more important and more valuable than money. But it’s interesting that time, like money, is subject to inflation. The more time we live, the shorter each year feels!

Of course, I’m not talking about physics and the actual rate of time as detailed in Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. I’m talking about the perception of time.  Despite Einstein’s theory of relativity which explains that the rate of time “depends entirely on speed and acceleration at any given moment,” Einstein demonstrated a keen understanding of the perception of time when he said, “An hour spent in the company of a pretty girl passes more quickly than an hour spent in a dentist chair!”

My takeaways from all this reading about the perception and rate of time are these:

• I have more years behind me that I do in front of me.
• I still have a lot I want to accomplish.
• There are so many friends and family members that I want to spend more time with.
• Time flies!  Life is short. Don’t wait, to pursue my dreams. Act on them NOW!