Time: The Only Thing We Can Control When We Feel Stuck

There’s a young man, not quite new to adulthood but still adjusting to the peculiar rhythm of it. He finds himself in the thick of what they call a quarter-life crisis, that unsettling feeling that life is moving too fast, slipping through his fingers like sand. The good things, he worries, will pass him by before he even has the chance to savor them. And he’s not alone in this. Crisis, it seems, isn’t confined to any one stage of life. Whether it’s a quarter-life crisis, a midlife crisis, or something in between, it’s as much a part of being human as breathing. This is for those who are still questioning, still confused, still stuck…

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Ever wondered why time seems to move faster for adults than for kids? Just look back at your last five years of life. You’ve probably seen at least one baby transform from a “poo-poo machine” into a full-grown teenager, or a teenager turning into an adult. But as an adult, not much has changed in your own life. Maybe you got a new job, a raise, or perhaps a new car or home. But unless you’re crushing life with a 10x increase in wealth every year or constantly innovating, there’s little change in your personal life other than watching your kids grow older and more mature.

Time is relative. As we age, it seems to speed up, and adding candles to your birthday cake becomes the new normal. Kids can’t even imagine five years, but adults understand how fleeting that time frame can be.

The speed at which life seems to move is tied to our sense of achievement. When we’re young, nature brings multiple changes to our bodies, teachers and mentors fill our minds with knowledge, and society gives us countless opportunities to prove ourselves and make money—all within just a few decades. So much happens in so little time that we feel a constant sense of achievement (or change), whether we like it or not. As adults, we experience less change in life, both physically and emotionally; we remain relatively constant. Many midlife crises stem from this very feeling. The sense of change weakens over time.

But if we observe this comparison between adults and youngsters carefully, we’ll notice that the changes in young people’s lives, which we often envy, are mostly handed to them, almost always without their asking. Most decisions in our lives as children are made by someone else—parents, teachers, mentors. Even nature doesn’t ask a kid if he wants to grow up to be a giant hunk of a man.

As adults, we have to make our own decisions. We’ve realized that the parade of changes is over, and it’s time to take control of our lives. Stability and stagnancy have become second nature, and life seems to move much faster than it used to.

But does it have to? Do we really need external achievements to feel the movement of life? Regardless of how many decades you’ve been on this planet, there’s almost no chance you’ve achieved everything you’ve ever desired (so far). And there’s almost no chance you’ll achieve everything you desire in the future either. If you’re an adult experiencing a midlife crisis, you likely have fewer decades ahead of you than you’ve already lived. The future may seem bleak.

We have so little time and so many unfulfilled desires. Just like our past, we know we can’t control our outcomes, because they depend heavily on external factors. We can’t even accomplish everything we want because we don’t have enough time left to learn and enjoy everything. So what can we do???

The sense of change comes only when we add value to our time. Quality time spent with your child is much more valuable than watching a Netflix movie. Time spent building a product that can help at least a few people, if not all of humanity, is much more valuable than time spent pursuing selfish gains. Time spent listening to your inner voice is much more valuable than letting others control your life. There’s no extrinsic achievement in doing that, but it brings intrinsic fulfilment. “Value” is not a reward, it’s not quantifiable; it’s intrinsic.

As adults, we should shift our focus from external achievements to internal fulfilment. We should replace our reward system with a value system. We should aim to add more value to ourselves, our relationships, and our work rather than chasing accolades and awards. Our focus should be on how we use our time, rather “valuable time”.

Because that’s the only thing that is constantly moving, the only thing standing between our last breath and who we are now. That’s the only thing that can fill our void for change. That’s the only thing we can control to feel unstuck!

Thanks for reading 🙂