Feed Your Memory: How to Make Time Feel Long Again

THE GREAT TIME THEFT, Part 5 of 11. Reclamation practice 2: novelty and awe. — From the desk of Kiler Davenport

Remember being a kid and a summer lasting forever? Same days on the calendar. Totally different feel.

That's not nostalgia lying to you. Everything was new, so everything got recorded.

If memory density is what makes time feel real, then novelty is the raw material of a long life. Take a different route to work. Learn one small skill a month: an instrument, a language, bread, knots. Eat somewhere you've never been. Talk to someone you'd normally walk past.

Then add awe on purpose. In 2012, Stanford researchers Rudd, Vohs, and Aaker published a paper in Psychological Science showing that experiences of awe expand people's perception of time. Awe-struck participants felt they had more time available, were less impatient, were more willing to give their time to others, and favored experiences over things. The mechanism is simple: awe pulls you fully into the present, and presence is what stretches time.

You don't need the Grand Canyon. A thunderstorm works. So does a night sky, a cathedral, a newborn's hand, a forest at dawn.

Here's the hard truth. If you don't schedule the new and the awe-inspiring, the feed will schedule the sameness for you. Put it on the calendar like anything else precious, because it makes the one thing money can't buy: the feeling of having time.

Next: a prescription with an actual dose, and you can take it close to home.

#TheGreatTimeTheft #LoneWolf #Awe #Novelty #TimePerception #PresentMoment #LiveFully #KilerDavenport