When I was a kid, time always seemed to move at a snail’s pace, except in the weeks before Christmas when it did not seem to move at all. The older I get, however, the more I realize the future arrives faster than I think it will.
In psychology and neuroscience, the study of how we experience time is called time perception. It refers to how our brains interpret the passage of time, which often feels very different from how it actually moves. One explanation for why time seems to speed up as we age is something called proportional theory. It suggests our perception of time is proportional to how much of life we have already experienced. That’s why a single year can feel to a five year old, like a decade feels to a fifty year old. Both represent twenty percent of the time they have experienced in their lives.
You might be wondering what any of this has to do with money or finance. The answer is quite a lot. We all know that one of the best ways to achieve financial success later in life is to begin saving and investing early. Yet many people fail to do so.
Part of the reason may be our perception of time when we are young. As teenagers and young adults, time feels like something we have an endless supply of. Worrying about something that might happen fifty years in the future can feel as pointless as worrying about something five hundred years away. But as the years pass and we reach middle age, our perception shifts. We begin to realize that retirement is not nearly as far away as we once believed.
This sense that life moves quickly is not a new discovery. Humanity has recognized it for thousands of years. In fact, the ancient Roman poet Virgil wrote the famous phrase “time flies” around 29 B.C. Yet I would argue that this sensation may be even more pronounced today than at any other time in history.
In earlier generations, much of life involved waiting. People waited for letters to arrive, waited for stores to open, waited for the next harvest, the next season, or the next opportunity. Today nearly everything is immediate. Emails replaced letters, on-demand streaming replaced scheduled broadcasts, and allowing 4-6 weeks for shipping have been replaced with goods arriving at our doorstep within hours.
Our calendars are full, our phones constantly deliver new information, and moments of stillness have become rare. Because our days are packed with activity and fewer natural pauses, time seems to move faster. The busier and more frictionless life becomes, the more quickly weeks and years slip by.
Before we know it, retirement arrives and too many people are not ready. They have not taken the steps needed to prepare for this next phase of life. The challenge is not simply that time moves quickly, but that modern life makes it easy to postpone important decisions until someday quietly becomes today.
Preparing for the future requires stepping out of the constant rush of the present long enough to think ahead, to make a plan, and take deliberate action. More than two centuries ago, Benjamin Franklin offered a reminder that still rings true today. “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
The future will arrive faster than we expect, but those who think ahead and act with intention are far more likely to meet it with confidence rather than regret.
(Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The advice is general in nature and not intended for specific situations)