Remember when you were six years old and ten minutes of waiting felt like an hour? Or when three-hour road trips felt like they were actually three years long? Or especially when an entire school year felt like an entire life of its own? Somewhere along the way, our grasp on the concept of time was altered. Ten minutes suddenly felt like five minutes, and four years of high school seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, we were adults who were in charge of our own lives; making life changing decisions about our futures. And all we can ask ourselves is, where did the time go?
Time is all relative. When you were six years old, you only had six years of life to compare everything to-- granted you may not even remember most of the them. When you’re fourteen, you’re finally beginning to grasp the concept of time but still have limited experience to compare your fourteen years of life to. When you’re seventeen or eighteen you’re graduating high school and everything from the place you call home, the faces you see every single day is changing. At this point in our lives we have experienced and witnessed eighteen years of change-- two years short of two decades of life. You’ve witnessed multiple presidents serve, your favorite childhood shows season finales, the ups and downs of puberty, and couple other milestones along the way.
The changes in which we experienced is what made us grow both physically and mentally, and of course change happens over time. The time that has passed has allowed us to step out of our comfort zones and try new things. It has allowed us to learn right from wrong and taught us to recognize the bad from the good. Most importantly, it has instilled the concept of ‘time’ within our minds. Time is relative because when we are younger not much time has passed and our the long term memory of our brains are not fully developed, therefore we have not learned as much. However as we get older we remember more and our life lessons accumulate into a nucleus of wisdom, in which we possess for the rest of our lives.
Today, when we millennials seem to notice how fast time seems to be flying by, it is because we are finally grasping the concept of time. Our six year old selves would be kicking themselves throughout the four years of college because for them, four years is longer than half of their life. Yet as a millennial in her second year of college, it seems as if two years of college has just flown right by. It almost seems absurd that I once thought of two years as a long time to be in school when in reality, I blinked and I’m almost halfway done with college.
So what does time being relative really mean? It means to enjoy every moment. It means that no matter what age you are, some day you make look back on where you are right now and wish you could do it all over again. So chase every one of your goals, be kind to everyone you come across, and live spontaneously because someday, you’re going to look back and realize that it’s not how much time that has flown by-- it’s what you’ve accomplished in that time that matters. Don’t blink.
