Time, Perspective, & Ice Cream

Something my five year old said recently made me think about the difference between her understanding of the passage of time and mine. She told me she wanted to go get ice cream and stated, “I’ve been waiting for so long! I’ve been wanting ice cream for four days.” She then asked me, “Is that a long time?” 

I like to give honest responses to my children in an age appropriate way, which can be challenging sometimes. My response to whether four days was a long time was one of those instances. Four days to a five year old likely feels like a very long time, especially when waiting for something like ice cream. Four days to wait for the weekend when it’s a Monday may feel like a “long” time, but experience tells me, as an adult, that those four days will go by before I know it and the weekend will come around like always. If I were waiting on important test results from a doctor, four days would likely feel like an eternity. The length of the day does not change. Four days waiting for the weekend or for potentially life altering news is still 96 hours of time. My perception is what’s different. 

I haven’t quite thought of it this way before, but my perception of time is based on many things, including obvious factors like my age and life experiences, as well as the end result - what it is I’m waiting for. Waiting for something typical or expected, like getting over a cold or receiving a paycheck, doesn’t phase me. Waiting for something exciting, like a vacation, or nerve-wracking, like taking an important test, can be harder to wait for, but, with an end in sight, I can still live my life in between. If I’m waiting for something unknown, time feels endless and stagnant at the same time, because my future is now uncertain, which impacts me in the present moment. 

For me as an adult, I guess it comes down to what is in my control versus what is not. I can control things like my daily schedule or plan ahead for things like my annual wellness exam. However, I have no control over the number of hours in a day or how many days I have in my life. The only thing I truly have control over is myself in this present moment. So while four days to an adult may not seem like a long time compared to the number of days they’ve already lived, who is to say how impactful those four days can be, when we all have our own perceptions of time? In the book The Counting Downers, author A.J. Compton wrote, “Although we try to control it in a million different ways, the only things you can ever really do to time are enjoy it, or waste it. That’s it.” This echoes the sentiment of living in the moment, which is honestly the way my five year old lives her life. For her, waiting four days for ice cream is an excruciatingly long time and I didn’t make her wait another day.