Time Goes So Fast

Available for over a year

Good Morning When I was a child, my grandmother would tell me, “Sarah – time goes so fast.” Being eight years old, I didn’t understand, as the much-anticipated birthday, or Christmas always seemed to take ages to come around. Now that I am substantially older than eight (!) I understand more. I have certain markers of time – the weekly call to put the rubbish bins out, for example. “It’s bin night”, one of us will shout. “What!!” replies the entire household. “We just put them out!” Nope – that was a week ago! But the marker in time which makes me realise the speed of things is my children’s birthday. Today, my eldest turns 29. It literally feels like yesterday that the double blue line appeared on the pregnancy test informing me of his impending blessing. Yet here we are – 29 years later – my son towering above me, a fully grown man, whom I adore. Scientists have lots of explanations for how our brains perceive time. Apparently, the older we get, the more time we have experienced, so a year becomes a smaller and smaller fraction of our total lives. This tricks our brain into thinking time is going faster. My Muslim faith has an altogether starker approach. “The life of this world is a pastime and a game. The life of the Hereafter, that is life if you but knew”, reminds the Qur’an, and the Prophet described our time in this world as like being a traveller stopping for shade under a tree. Science or faith are both in agreement with my grandmother, it would seem. Life goes by in a flash. I pray we can appreciate its blessings whilst we can. Ameen