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PHILIP'S BLOG: Life may be long but it's quick

BY PHILIP PATSTON

· PIP'S BLIPS

Yesterday I wrote about my belief that life is long, not short as we are often told. Paradoxically, as long as life may be, it goes quickly. And it's getting quicker.

As contradictory as it may sound, while I believe life is long, I also think it is quick. I mean, I cannot believe we are nearly halfway through July already.

I read once that life seems to go more quickly as you age because each period of time becomes a smaller percentage of your life. When you are five years old, a year is one-fifth of your life. However, when you're 50, a year is one-fiftieth.

So, our perception of the speed of time may change as we age. But there are other factors at play.

Firstly, the amount of information we are consuming, intentionally or not, is increasing exponentially. Remember, if you're older than 30 (perhaps 40), when the landline and letters were the only ways we could communicate without seeing someone face-to-face?

Now we have mobile phones, texts, Facebook timelines as well as its and other message platforms, email (often several accounts), Skype, Twitter, Instagram, productivity platforms like Basecamp and Trello...[add others that I've missed]. Not to mention millions of websites and apps pushing updates at us 24 hours a day. Even bus shelters and billboards digitally change their messages.

Not only do we have this plethora of communication channels, but there's often an expectation to respond as soon as possible. Information is always demanding our attention.

But the second factor is less obvious but in a lot of ways more insidious. Things are changing more and more quickly. Technology is developing exponentially. Biotech, nano-tech and artificial intelligence used to be stories of the future — now they are part of the present narrative.

 

Some technology, after only a few years, is already part of our past — does anyone own an iPod or MP3 player these days?

 

Welcome to the age of the long, quickening life. Are you agile enough to keep up and keep on going?

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