"Why Does Life Seems to Fly by as You Get Old?" (Korean professor of Psychology, Kim Jeong-Woon)

Professor Kim, Jeong-Woon (Korean psychologist/ best-selling book author) encourages us to embrace life wholeheartedly and fill it with joyful experiences. According to him, as we accumulate meaningful and happy memories, time feels less like it is racing by. Rather than watching the years disappear like an arrow, we experience life more deeply and richly, making our later years feel fuller and more satisfying.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview with the professor Kim:

“Psychologists explain why life seems to speed up as we age through what they call the “reminiscence effect.” The idea is that when we have many memories stored from a certain period of life, that period feels longer in retrospect, whereas when there are fewer memories we can recall, that period feels shorter. In general, memories from childhood through adolescence are vivid and plentiful. That is why even elderly people can remember events from their childhood as clearly as if they had happened yesterday. In contrast, there is often nothing particularly remarkable about the memories from our 40s and 50s, the years we tend to think we lived the busiest and worked the hardest. Even though they were not that long ago, there is often not much to tell about them. We may have been frantically busy, but there were not many moments to which we attached special meaning.

In short, it is because we live without much fun. Childhood Christmases, a first birthday party spent with a girlfriend during adolescence, the memory of a first kiss, and so on. Most of the memories we have before becoming adults are overwhelmingly exciting experiences. In other words, each new experience repeatedly activated the information-processing mechanism that assigns meaning to experiences and stores them in long-term memory. As we grow older, however, everything begins to feel ordinary. We no longer think those experiences are worth remembering. Giving meaning to our experiences is what creates the milestones of life. Just as bamboo has its nodes, life becomes worth living when it has its own milestones.”