Is it just me or does it feel that time goes faster the older I get?
Many of us feel that time passes more quickly as we age…a perception that can lead to anxious thoughts, self-reflection, doubt and sometimes regret.
“Where did the time go?,” a question middle-aged and older adults often ask ourselves. According to psychologists, “the sensation that time speeds up as you get older is one of the biggest mysteries of the experience of time.”
Super. Good to know.
During recent conversations with clients, friends and family, I have identified a theme. New Year’s resolutions this year are not as focused on the typical goals of the past. You know the ones: I need to visit the gym more, l need to lose weight, get organized, spend more time with my kids—which, by the way, my 2019 goals include ALL of these. Geez!
However, a bigger theme is making a connection with people this New Year and that is, to be PRESENT. To be present in the moment—huh, what a concept. One definition of PRESENT is, “the present time, the here and now, this day and age, the present moment.”
My translation sounds more like this: Spend more quality time with family. Stop looking so far into the future or so far back into the past that you miss amazing moments NOW. Be in today. Be present. By the way, easier said than done.
Maybe it’s not a coincidence that a “gift” is synonymous with a “present?”
Yeah, cheesy, but I am making you think.
A gift to my husband this year in place of a Christmas card was a 25-Day Gratitude Journal, an idea I gleaned from a book club I am a part of. I took time each day, December 1st through Christmas Day, to identify and document things that he did that I appreciated…things I normally take for granted. It brought me into the present, every day, and held me there. To be honest, it was far more of a gift for me than him.
“In the 1991 movie City Slickers, Jack Palance gives Billy Crystal some profoundly simple advice. When Crystal asks him the secret of life, Palance holds up a forefinger and answers with a single word: “One.” Choose one thing. Do it to the best of your ability. Let it go. Pick something else. Repeat endlessly. How sad that so much of our lives is spent looking back over our shoulders or gazing far ahead instead of wringing full benefit from the only thing we truly own: Now. This moment. None other. There is no other.”
[Reference: ― Lionel Fisher, Celebrating Time Alone: Stories Of Splendid Solitude]
How tragic, therefore, not to fulfill its unique promise before it passes from us forever. How much of our regret comes from wasting so many of our moments wanting something better, something different, something other than what we have at the moment we have it.
All of this experience, I have found, is making me a better advisor. Planning is very much about dollars and cents, but the more experience I have, the more I realize it is just as much about creating memories and pursuing dreams. Our mantra for clients at Compass is matching your dollars with your dreams. As a younger advisor, I bought into that and helped clients work toward that. As a more “seasoned” advisor (seasoned sounds better than older), I get it and more importantly, I am passionate about it.
The truth is, time does fly when you are having fun!