A lateral birthday (and thoughts on how time works)
Our perception of how time passes by pretty much defines how we approach life
I’m turning 31 today - thank you for all the texts and messages, they truly make my day. My biggest regret of the year is not being able to finish building my 2314 piece R2-D2 special edition LEGO. This’ll be the year, I promise.
Although I probably have a free pass if I want to skip the newsletter today, I’m not going to take it. Let’s keep our lateral muscles trained.
If you missed the weekend edition, here’s a quick link for you:
Now let’s get to it:
A woman staying in a hotel hears a knock on her door. She opens it to find a man she doesn’t know. The man apologizes and says he thought it was his room, then goes down the hall and gets into the elevator.
The woman quickly phones security. What made her so suspicious?
An answer, as usual, at the end.
Our relationship with time
Obviously, I have to cover this on the day I’m getting older.
The older we get, the faster we feel years are passing by.
There are a lot of reasons for this. The general consensus is that the human brain likes & remembers new experiences. The older we get, routine starts to creep in and we have fewer and fewer new experiences, which is why we feel the years go by quickly.
This, however, is just one theory. There doesn’t seem to be a general consensus on the matter.
One fascinating theory I read a while back, but I unfortunately can’t find the source, was the we’re not looking at time through the right lenses.
When you’re 10 years old, 1 year of your life represents 10% of your current lifespan. 10% of your life is a lot.
By the time you’re 20, 1 year is 5% of that.
And by the time you’re 50, 1 year represents a measly 2% of your life. Much more manageable (and forgettable).
So your point of reference is becoming smaller and smaller. Time flies because the way we look at time (generally through the 1-year lens) stays the same, but our point of reference changes dramatically.
One way to alter your perspective is to switch up this point of reference. Start looking at 2, 3 or 5 year intervals instead of 6 months or 1 year, especially when you get older.
It’s easy to get a lot of new experiences if you’re dedicating 10% of your life to that. When it’s only 2-3%, it’ll take longer.
In the past 4 years, I’ve experienced so many new things (moving to Dubai, to Seoul, to New York, the whole startup life, surgery, experiencing a dozen new cities, meeting hundreds of new people). These past 4 years have felt like 20 to me, but it still helps to look at things through a bigger lens, rather than the same one you used 15 years ago.
I cannot disagree more when people tell me “time flies”. It might, if you let it fly away from you - but that’s entirely your choice, not the status quo.
Answer: you don’t knock on your own door.
(disclaimer: all of these exercises have alternative answers. Another theory could be that he forgot his keycard and was knocking so his partner would let him in - this also works, but it is closer to liniar thinking, not lateral)
I cannot disagree more when people tell me “time flies”. It might, if you let it fly away from you - but that’s entirely your choice, not the status quo. This is pure gold !!!
La Multi Ani!!!