There comes a moment in adulthood, usually halfway through eating leftovers you don’t remember cooking, when you realize time is moving faster than Amazon Prime shipping. Whole weeks slip by like receipts you swear were “just on the counter.” Blink twice and it’s Monday again. Blink three times and you’re in a different season with no memory of how you got there.

Science now says this isn’t because we’re losing it. No, apparently our brains are playing a time-lapse prank on us.

Recent studies tell us that as we age, our brains start recording fewer “distinct events.” In other words, the novelty factory shuts down and the routine conveyor belt takes over. And routine ends up compressing time like a poorly packed suitcase.

Children, meanwhile, with their endless stream of “firsts,” live in wide-angle slow motion. First bike. First day of school. First time discovering that glue is not a food group. Their brains are lighting up memory markers like Times Square at midnight.

But adults? We eat the same breakfast, go to the same job, talk to the same people, and watch the same reboots of the same shows we watched 20 years ago. Our brains shrug and say, “Eh, nothing new here. Skip.”

And then the month is gone.

The neurologists have receipts, too. Imaging studies literally show fewer distinct neural patterns as we get older. This is the equivalent of your brain looking out the window and going, “Yeah yeah, same tree, same street, same kid on the scooter wake me when something explodes.”

Which brings me to the existential question: Do I want a life my brain finds so boring it fast-forwards through it?

Absolutely not.

I have decided, therefore, to push back against “time compression.” I’m fighting entropy with enthusiasm. I am throwing novelty at my neurons like confetti at a parade.

Yes, I am that woman at the restaurant ordering the dish I can’t pronounce. Yes, I’m booking trips to places I’ve never been and might not be able to spell.
Yes, I’m learning new skills even if I look ridiculous doing them. Which is half the charm, honestly.

I refuse to let my life become so routine that my brain files entire years under “miscellaneous.”

I don’t want to settle into the emotional equivalent of comfortable shoes. I want to keep stretching mentally, emotionally, and geographically. I want days that my brain has no choice but to notice and remember because they startled it awake.

I want wonder. And weirdness. And new foods. And new places. And new memories. I want my brain to gasp a little and say, “Well, I wasn’t expecting that.”

Because that’s how you slow time down. That’s how you make it feel full again. And that’s how you keep life from becoming a highlight reel with very few highlights.

So what more can I do? Plenty. More than plenty. I can keep choosing the unfamiliar. I can keep honoring curiosity. I can keep being slightly unhinged in the pursuit of joy.

Time may speed up as we age but I can sprint, skip, or salsa right alongside it.