It’s incredible to me how everything manifests at the right time, right place, and puts the spark in the engine when needed. I have been pondering this idea for quite awhile and got the final piece to the puzzle this morning. Speed, I’m not talking about that ’69 mustang, the mile time on your watch, or the drug that is featured in many a film about robbing a bank. What i’m talking about is the time in which we live our lives. The seconds, minutes, hours, that make up our conscious being. Let’s talk.

This morning as I was working and having my morning coffee, I stumbled upon an interesting snippet of a podcast I had playing in the background. “Routine is the enemy of time”, by a man named Jedidiah Jenkins. I had never heard of him nor his material and so I delved in a bit deeper and put on some of his youtube content. It coincided amazingly with a thought I have been mulling over. Why is it that some memories are so profound in my head? Why is it that some moments in our lives feel slower than others? How can some things seem to speed up or slow down? So often we hear that life happens in the blink of an eye, yet in other moments it can drag on for what seems like decades. That it’ll be here before you know it, that it only gets faster…For me, It all started when I was traveling and when I came back home. How, it seemed to me to be an eternity away… taking everything a day, an hour, a moment at a time. Yet to some of my friends and family it seemed to be the blink of an eye. Jedidiah gave me some amazing insight into these ideas.

Let’s start with the proportion theory. Often times people say that this is why when you are younger time seems to move slower while as you age time speeds up. This is because when you are 5, a year is 1/5 of your life giving it the disproportionate perception of being longer vs. when you are 80. The problem with this, as he points out, is if that were true then how would it be possible to have that same child like feeling and understanding of the slower days at an older age? For him biking from Oregon to South America, for me traveling and living abroad.

The next theory is the fear theory. His example being when you are in a car accident and your car is rolling down the side of a cliff how three seconds feels like an eternity. He was in this type of an accident where he was able to recall the exact music and song that was playing as well as recollecting thinking about the thought itself. He explains that the amygdala (fear producing center of the brain) is not slowing down time, but layering on memories on top of each other which creates a richness and profoundness to your thoughts. This gives the feeling of being in a slower time.

The next theory he talks about is the return trip effect. This is explained as when you are taking a trip and it seems that on the way back it feels as though time is way faster than when you initially made the trip. The way back is now a familiar scenario that you can call upon, but in an experiment they also tested going a new way back. Participants still reported that the trip felt shorter on the way home. This can be because of reflecting on the trip, distractions on social media from posting and engaging.

The last piece he talks about is the reminiscent bump. It is the ability to recall memories from different times in your life, often times big “firsts”, like your first kiss, your first time driving, your first sexual experience, etc. Yet, he debunks it by asking if you recall the first time trying a bowl of cheerios. This recall comes not just in those first moments, but I think in profound moments, big experiences, things that are perspective or life changing.

All of this to basically say the speed of our lives varies. In which we often feel we may not have control over, yet I believe we do. I often speak about the relationship between order and chaos in our lives and how that can feed into this paradigm of slowing time down. Whether it’s fear, or new stimulus, I think that the ability to take back the control of our time is leaving that which is comfortable. As Jedidiah said, routine is the enemy of time. I can sit down and discuss with someone a multitude of memories from my experiences traveling, from close calls to drunken nights, being able to give a play by play of situations, experiences, conversations, and scenery. All so vivid and imprinted in my brain, yet while working in the corporate world recall very few day to day moments. Not to say that these things aren’t important. We are creatures of habit, and I understand that there is only so much time in a day to accomplish what you need to do. From work to raising kids and everything in-between that all call upon our attention and give us fulfillment or whatever it may be for you. What I am saying though is that in these profound moments, in this time where we can take time and watch it become slower, we should bring an awareness and gratitude towards it. To take the ability to enjoy a single moment for what it is, a single breath, or a smell in a breeze. To check out of the routine where we find comfort and to step into the world of unknown, to understand that moments are what make up our existence. So, to end on a cliche, don’t forget to stop and smell the roses.

On purpose,

Matt