How can an Adventure Slow Down Time?
Adventures can be anything that’s new and different for you … so what’s been your adventure today? Tomorrow? Next week?
I have been working my way through Latesha Randall’s book ‘The To-Be List’ and deliberately focusing on one page every week. This week our page is ‘Be Adventurous’.
How often have you thought to yourself … “I must do that some time…” Have you ever driven past a gallery, garden, store or walkway in your town and thought, “That looks interesting – I wonder what it’s like in there…?” We have a walking track that runs off our road that has been on my ‘must do’ list for years now, in fact I’m a little embarrassed to say how long we’ve been living here and not ventured onto the track. Yes – it’s certainly on the list and I’m hoping that I will ‘knock the bugger off’ this month.
Last week my adventure was dismantling an old couch ready for the burn pile once the restricted fire season is over. I hear you say how is that an adventure? Well it involved a battery drill – something I’ve been a stranger to, up until last week. Hubby kindly left the drill and the drill bits in the kitchen for me two weeks ago so the time was nigh. After a little button-pushing, knob twisting and ‘you-tubing’ the drill was swiftly in reverse removing rusty screws from an old couch that used to be in our dining room at home when I was about two years old. The couch has served me well at my flats and homes over the last (ahem ahem) years and with its stuffing falling out, it’s cat-hair coating and resident spider population and other cobwebby creatures it is now time for it to be farewelled. Adventure complete for the couch, and battery drill operation ticked off for moi! I’ve also had the adventure of using my ‘alternate’ transport this last week while my trusty ‘Mazda-rati’ was at the car-doctor.
There’s another benefit to adventures as well … Some years back when I was researching a talk on time management, I wanted to find out if there was any basis to the perception of slowing down time. I know that when we went overseas on our last two trips I noticed how a two week holiday felt like a month away from home. How can that be? I also know that I also experience the hastening by of time, with days rushing by too fast and feeling as though I need a couple of extra hours. I know that others do too as I’ve heard so many comments over the festive season like … “My hasn’t the year flown by?” so I know I’m not alone.
Well – I found some research by David Eagleman about how our brain processes our experiences. Information comes into our brains through the five senses and the more information there is to process, the longer it takes the brain to process it. For example, when we’re in life-threatening situations we remember the time as longer because we record more of the experience as it’s new and unusual to us. Conversely if your brain doesn’t have to process lots of new information, time seems to move faster so the same amount of time will feel shorter that it would otherwise. So if you’re in a new place, experiencing new things one day, and the next day doing your usual routine, the first day would seem to have been longer than the second day, even though they’re the same number of hours. What does this mean? Have a go at varying your days and experience the difference for yourself. David Eagleman suggested taking a different route to work; do something different at lunch time, or – have an adventure – and experience the slowing of time. It’s truly possible.
It’s a big world out there – when was the last time you did something a little different? We’re here for a good time not a long time, so what’s your next adventure?