This is my 8th year writing on my birthday, and this year I traveled in time.
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In early May, I went to Hamburg to attend a conference and meet some of the folks from our German team. It happens to be where my best friend from childhood lives now, so he invited me to stay with him and his family overnight on the weekend before the conference. I was very excited to see him because since I left Russia in 2005, I have seen him only once, 8 years ago.
We only talk about once a year, if that, so the first day we had a great time together just catching up. The next day after breakfast we decided to go for a walk. I would fly back home right after the conference, so we were not planning to see each other after. We only had about an hour before I needed to go.
The weather was perfect. It rained earlier that morning, so the air was heavy and humid, but because the temperature was not hot, it felt comfortable. It smelled of cottonwood, a smell much more common in Europe than in North America. A smell I grew up with. A smell that signaled that it was late spring, the school was about to be over, and that we had a whole summer, full of mischief and adventure, ahead of us.
That exact walk—I have done it countless times over the years with him growing up. In that hour, something magical happened and I traveled back in time to do one more walk with him. On this walk, the year suddenly was 2002 and we were walking from school, on our last day before the summer holidays, with the full intention of burning our notebooks. I was still wearing the baggy pants and oversized t-shirt, and we were talking about our plans to graffiti another garage. We discussed what next rap music CD we should buy. We were discussing whether we should go play Heros of Might and Magic III on his computer, or go shoot hoops outside.
The two decades since that walk felt so distant, that I almost questioned whether my life after it had even happened. Had I really moved to Canada, gone to university, started a business, got married, had children?
When we finally returned home, the spell broke. It was time for me to leave. I felt as if I were saying goodbye to a brother, with no clear sense of when I might see him again.
On the train ride into the city, I stared out the window, gripped by a profound sense of loss and my own mortality. I couldn’t comprehend how more than 20 years had flown by. Even more startling was a moment of clarity: the next 20 years would pass even faster. In what feels like no time, I’ll be 50, 70, perhaps even 90…
What I Learned
It has been widely observed and documented that the perception of time accelerates as we get older. It’s not fully understood why, but it is hypothesized that it is because each increment of time gets smaller compared to the total length of life. One year when you are five is 20% of your life on Earth, while for me now, one year is only 2.5% of my life. Another running hypothesis is that time feels to pass slower when you are younger because you are experiencing things for the first time. New experiences do slow down our perception of time – that’s why a week-long vacation abroad can feel so long compared to a week when you are at home in the routine.
So here is a question that I am increasingly asking myself: if you spend your life acquiring new experiences, always changing things up, and doing cool things that slow down time in the moment, would life feel longer when you are at the end of it?
The journey to Hamburg strengthened my conviction that regardless of how you live your life, in the end, it will all feel like it has flown by in an instant. You can spend your life surrounded by family, make great achievements, travel the world, or you can spend your life on the couch watching TV all day. Either way, it will feel like a dream because it will have flown by.
This seems like a game you can’t win. So where do I go from here?
In some ways, I find this thought comforting and empowering because it gives me clarity on what to do: focus on ensuring your perception of the recent past is elongated. The way to achieve this is by increasing the number and frequency of creating 'core memories'—those impactful life experiences that slow down your perception of time as you experience them. A lot can be said on this topic, but it all starts with trying to live a life capable of producing these core memories. The way to do this may differ for every person, but for myself, I learned that my strongest core memories are formed either in the process or as a result of taking on significant challenges.
Going into my next rotation around the Sun, I want to challenge myself to give it all to anything I do – work and train as hard as I can, be more present with loved ones when I am with them, climb steeper mountains, step outside the comfort zone more often, and take bigger swings. It will not matter much in the future but it matters a lot now, so the only option I have is to avoid delaying happiness, action, or courage even by a single day.