As a child the passage of a single day seemed to last a lifetime. Time, as I perceived it in my youth, was a slow moving current that carried me through each day. When I entered my late teens and early twenties time began to speed up. After college, time accelerated even more and since then it has continued to gather speed with each passing year.

I think this holds true for most. That’s why the expressions “how time flies” and “seems like only yesterday” are so often used when discussing the past. I have read that our perception of this acceleration is due to the actual measurement of a unit of time over the whole of our lives. When we are young, an hour accounts for a far greater percentage of our total life. As we grow older, an hour becomes a smaller and smaller fraction of our total time on earth. 

Whatever the cause, I have been working on ways to slow down my perception of time. One way is to simply sit still. Stillness, without distraction, slows time. Some days, when I get home before your mother and am excited for her return after another day of work, I stop all that I am doing and wait. I put away my phone, close my computer, I don’t even reach for a book. I just sit and breathe. I believe it is exacerbated by my anxiousness for her arrival, but in these moments time slows significantly. 

As for how to slow time during other periods of the day, and do so routinely, so as to expand our conscious lifetime, I will be sure to let you know as soon as I figure it out.