The “Vacation Paradox” involves the quality and focus of new experiences, especially in contrast to familiar daily activities. During non-vacation life, time seems to pass at a normal pace. Markers like the start of the workweek, work-shift, weekends, and bedtime represent a certain cadence, the rhythm of things.
But once we go on vacation, the stimulation of new sights, sounds, feelings, tastes, and experiences disrupts the rhythm, producing a disproportionate amount of novelty causing these two types of time to tangle, creating a warped perception of time.
This warped perception causes a "contradictory feeling that a good [vacation] whizzes by, yet feels long when you look back,” says BBC broadcaster and psychology writer Claudia Hammond in Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception.
Call it what you want. Label it. File it away. The clock is ticking.
Click. Click. Click. You owe it to yourself to enjoy new sights, sounds, feelings and experiences.
My daughter, Morgan, pictured above, was two years old yesterday. She's twenty today. God willing, she'll live a long, productive and happy life tomorrow.
What I learned from Morgan and our recent time together in California is this: Make the most of the moments allotted to you. Don't die with your music still in you. Dance. Laugh. Swim. Explore. Get dirty. Take risks. Climb. Fall. Fly. Stay curious.
Hurry. The clock is tick-tocking with indifference. It doesn't care about your wealth, health, attitude, gender, political views, or sexual orientation. It could care less about your decisions, your failures or successes, or whether or not your child is here or there. Time ticks and clicks without mercy. Don't let time pass without a good fight. Make the most of the moments allotted to you.
Make the most of your moments now.
Special thanks to Morgan for reminding us to “live before we die.”
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