Why Childhood Felt Like Forever and Adulthood Feels Like Fast-Forward

Have you ever caught yourself saying, “Wasn’t it just January?” only to look at the calendar and realise it’s already October? Or maybe you’ve noticed how your birthdays used to feel like a countdown event, but now they arrive quietly with bills, responsibilities, and a cake you sometimes forget to cut.

As children, time felt endless. Summer vacations stretched like golden, lazy afternoons. Waiting for a birthday gift or exam results felt eternal. Even one hour of school lunch break held laughter, friendships, and entire memories. But as adults, weeks vanish, months dissolve, and suddenly years feel like they’re slipping through our fingers.

So what changed? Not time, but our perception of it.

The Psychology Behind Time Speeding Up

The Proportional Theory of Subjective Time explains this beautifully. According to it, we perceive time relative to how long we’ve lived. So, when you were 5, a single year was 20% of your life, a massive chunk. But at 25, a year is just 4%. At 40, it’s 2.5%.

This shifting proportion makes time feel faster as we age. But that’s not the only factor. As children, everything is new, the first day of school, first monsoon rain, first best friend, first bicycle fall, first heartbreak. Novelty slows down time because the brain pays deeper attention and forms stronger memories. Life feels longer when it’s filled with beginnings.

Adulthood, however, moves with routine - same work, similar days, predictable patterns. When life becomes repetitive, the brain moves into autopilot mode and stores fewer detailed memories. The days feel long, but the years feel short.

Psychology also tells us that novelty plays a big role in how we experience time. When something is new, unfamiliar, or emotionally meaningful, the brain pays more attention, forming richer memories and slowing our perception of time. Childhood is filled with novelty: first schools, first friendships, first festivals, first failures. But in adulthood, repetition replaces curiosity, and the brain stops recording details with the same intensity. So routine makes time feel faster, while meaningful new experiences stretch it, not in hours, but in memory.

A Little Memory We All Live Through

Think of Diwali as a child, the excitement started weeks before. New clothes, sweets, cousins visiting, firecrackers, lights, laughter, every moment felt bright and stretched in vivid detail.

I still remember a Diwali I spent in Ooty, the air was cold enough to see my breath, the sky was velvet-dark, and the crackers echoed between hills instead of city traffic. The smell of warm ladoo and eucalyptus leaves mixed together in a way only the mountains could create. That night felt endless, as if time paused just so I could feel every spark, every laugh, every moment.

Now, as adults, Diwali seems to arrive faster every year. One moment you’re paying taxes, and suddenly lights are going up again. You barely notice where the time between festivals went, because routine compresses memory. Your life isn’t shorter now, but your mind records fewer standout moments.

So What Do We Do About It?

If time feels like fast-forward, the solution isn’t to run faster, but to live slower and more consciously. The antidote to time speeding up is presence.

Create novelty again like try new hobbies, travel to unfamiliar places, learn something just for joy, cook a recipe you’ve never attempted. Break patterns that are automated. Even small changes like taking a different route to work, meeting new people, or journaling your days, tell the brain: This moment matters. Remember it.

And perhaps even more importantly: "PAUSE."

We spend our childhood wanting to grow up and our adulthood wanting time to slow down. But the truth is, life isn’t rushing away; it’s unfolding. We just rarely stop to feel it.

A Soft Reminder

Time isn’t the enemy. It’s a quiet companion. Childhood wasn’t slower because clocks ticked differently, it was slower because we allowed ourselves to experience life, not just move through it. You can’t go back to being a child, but you can reclaim wonder, novelty, and presence.

So today, maybe watch the sky change colour, taste your food slowly, call someone you miss, take a walk without a goal, breathe deeply, not as tasks, but as moments worth inhabiting. Because when life is felt fully, time stops rushing and begins to belong to you again.

Written By : L. Padma Swathy
Counselling Psychologist, Chennai