When I’m not doing Perspectives or other things, I’m working on a project known as The Mindset List. This annual List details what has always or never been true in the lifetimes of entering college students. As such, it goes back eighteen years.
We’ve gotten thousands and thousands of responses over the years, but one stands out from all the others: “This List makes me feel really old.”
It’s true. Take this year’s List. For these new college students John Elway has always been retired. Frank Sinatra has always been dead. Are we old or what?
How can John Elway have retired only eighteen years ago? Wasn’t that just last week?
Well, some research suggests that as we grow older, the feeling of time’s passing speeds up. Why? One theory is that the brain has changed, so that 90 seconds seems more like just 60 to those of us who possess older craniums. Another theory is that time slows down when we do new things. But oldsters don’t do many new things, so time, made up of routine, just gallops by.
Whatever the reason, it’s rather sad. Just when we’d like time to slow down, because we have far more yesterdays than tomorrows, it speeds up. It’s just another insult, I guess, linked with growing old in America, land of the young and restless.
I’m Tom McBride, and that’s my perspective.
