Why Time Feels Faster After 2020?
A lot of people feel that time has been moving too fast since 2020. They have vivid memories up until that year, then COVID hit, and suddenly it feels as if time has slipped away. Many even feel cheated. Logically, time cannot accelerate in a physical sense, physics assures us of that, yet it often feels as though it does. It seems like we just celebrated New Year’s, and before we know it, three-quarters of the year is gone.
The truth is, we don’t experience time as a physical entity. Without clocks and calendars, our only way of perceiving time is through memory. And no matter how sharp your memory may be, you cannot recall every single year or every small event in your life. Instead, what you remember are the key moments, the ones that mattered and the emotions they carried.
If memory is how we measure time, what happens when we stop creating new ones? Or when the gap between significant memories stretches so wide it could cover years? Significance isn’t limited to milestones like achievements or travel; it also includes how deeply something affects you. Even hosting guests, whether it brought joy or conflict, can leave behind a lasting marker in your mind.
These are what psychologists call mental markers. Your brain organizes time through them. Think about your school years: you don’t remember the whole decade, only a handful of vivid events. Strangely, you may recall even less about your job, despite spending most of your waking hours there.
The less distinctive your time is, the less of it you will remember. As those gaps widen, your memory skips from one sharp moment to the next, compressing the years in between. This creates the illusion that time is moving faster. In reality, it isn’t, our lives are simply filled with too much sameness. Without distinctive events, our perception of time collapses into what researchers call temporal compression.
Ask yourself: What was the last thing that made your heart race? The last time you felt deeply frustrated or helpless? The last time you felt unstoppable, like a genius, or on top of the world? Chances are, you struggle to recall. Work routines, endless scrolling, and content consumption have dulled our senses. Our brains no longer register these as significant, and so they leave behind no memorable traces. You might not even remember the last movie you watched. Nothing is impacting us enough to make it distinct. That’s why nostalgia grows stronger: the present often feels unremarkable compared to the past.
The cure is simple but not easy, do more with your life. Failing is better than existing in monotony. It’s okay to stumble, as long as you keep getting back up. Learn a new skill, meet new people, make mistakes, take risks, embarrass yourself if you must, you probably won’t even remember the awkwardness in a few years. What you will remember are the distinctive moments. They are the flavors of life, and they enrich your sense of time.
When you add more of these markers, life stops feeling like it’s slipping away. Time doesn’t slow down, but you start living enough to feel it again.