No Wonder Summers Felt Endless

Time sure does fly, doesn’t it? Summer is almost here.

My four-year old nephew will soon experience the feeling of an endless summer we all long for.

But me?

I continue to be shocked by how quickly time moves. Soon, I won’t be able to believe that Christmas is here. Growing up, it took forever to arrive.

Why?

When you’re 4 years old, a three-month summer break is 6.25% of your entire life. For a 32-year-old, that same proportion of time equals two years.

In other words, a summer break for a four-year-old feels as long as TWO YEARS to a 32-year-old.

No wonder summer used to feel so endless.

Time wasn’t moving slower back then. Each moment just carried more weight. Because each year becomes a smaller fraction of your life, time feels like it speeds up as you get older.

Woah.

It feels like just yesterday since we last spoke, but since it’s been quite some time…here are a few other things I’ve been thinking about that will (hopefully) make you think.

I’m writing this as snow falls here in Denver – nothing quite like a crisp November morning in May!

***

1. Airports are always like, what if the worst sandwich you ever had was $16.95

2. Bowling is interesting. I’ll bowl a few times a year (usually a bit buzzed) and still manage to roll a few strikes. My first thought: I shouldn’t be able to do the best move in your sport so easily. My second thought: that’s probably why bowling is so popular. Anyone can show up and roll a strike or two, but true mastery takes a tremendous amount of skill. (kind of like pickleball)

3. When something bothers me, I try to frame it as slightly amusing rather than slightly annoying. It makes a huge difference. Sometimes you just gotta laugh it off.

4. Thinking after a concert that the artist liked your city/show the best is like thinking the bartender was flirting with you

5. Research continues to show that your mindset can measurably affect your actual physical and mental state. Didn’t sleep well? Convince yourself you’re well-rested. A bit stressed? Consider it a challenge. It works. If you tell yourself you’re lucky, odds are you just might be.

6. Speaking of luck, here’s an interesting stat: if you roll a pair of dice once, your odds of getting 12 are 2.8%. However, if you roll 250 times, your odds are 99.5%. No luck needed. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

7. The person who named the fireplace must’ve been sick of naming things

8. 1/100 odds of success? If you try 100 times, your odds of success aren’t 100% but they are 63.4% (1-0.99^100). Remember when your math teacher said you won’t always have a calculator growing up? Biggest lie I’ve ever heard.

9. Watching TV is cool but have you ever high-fived a bunch of strangers at the ballpark after your team hit a late-inning home run?

10. Reminder: you don’t have to actually go to a movie to pick up movie theater popcorn. Similarly: baseball stadiums should open up as restaurants and sell ballpark food once a month. Nachos, pretzels, hot dogs, chicken tenders, ice cream…out of a helmet of course. It tastes better that way.

11. You don’t become cooler as you age. You just care less about being cool, which is what makes you cool

12. People posting their Spotify Wrapped like “so accurate”. Yea no kidding, it’s literally data.

13. What have I been up to? Just living the dream. I wake up and immediately stare at a small screen then I clock eight hours behind a medium screen (while checking in on small screen). To relax, I spend a few hours staring at a big screen before unwinding in bed staring at a small screen.

14. Anyone else agree that phone addiction has gotten so bad that watching a movie feels productive

15. You ever get a little too motivated at night then wake up and push your 5am alarm back two hours to a reasonable time

16. The worst day at work is the day after finding out you didn’t get the job you were interviewing for because you had already mentally prepared to quit your job and had stopped working. The best day at work is when you’ve accepted another job offer but haven’t told your boss yet and you’re sitting in meetings like I don’t care about any of this.

Thanks for reading. I’ll leave you with a few new favorite quotes I’ve found (if you’re into that sort of thing).

“The amount of good things in your life depends on your ability to notice them”

“Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe”

P.S. Yes, I’m actually 33 and not 32, but the math worked out better if I used a 32-year-old in the example.

That leads me to my final observation: I always thought I’d be the cool person that didn’t care about their age when they got older, but our intern recently asked me when I graduated college and I kind of wanted to lie.

2015, by the way. Go Hoosiers.