We’ve all heard the ancient, infuriating lie: Time flies when you’re having fun.
In its purest sense, the phrase is a bittersweet truth. It’s the genuine heartbreak of a great dinner with friends that feels like it lasted 20 minutes or a long-awaited vacation that seems like it’s over before your feet even touch the sand.
But adulthood has forced us to recognize a second, much darker sarcastic version of the cliché.
This is the version usually uttered when you’re mired in an unenjoyable task where time is doing the exact opposite of flying. It’s crawling on its hands and knees.
But time seems to hit its highest gear in much less opportune situations.
The fastest time ever recorded isn’t Usain Bolt on an Olympic track, Michael Phelps in a swimming pool or Lindsey Vonn on a ski slope. It’s the terrifying acceleration of the clock when you are faced with a mountain of tasks you can’t possibly finish before a looming deadline.
In that situation, you are definitely not having fun, yet time seems to go so fast it’s breaking the sound barrier. The clock stops being a tool for measuring the day and becomes an active opponent, not just sprinting ahead when you are stuck in slow motion but turning to taunt you as it does.
Those are the moments when you check the clock every five minutes, only to realize it’s actually been more than an hour. Psychologists call this phenomenon hyper-focus driven by acute stress, but just those words alone cause acute stress.
Because the truth is, time flies, no matter what. You can’t actually stop the clock just by crossing the finish line. Hitting a deadline doesn’t magically slow things down, it usually means you are already starting late on the next mountain of tasks.
That’s why that old saying is a lie. Time doesn’t need us to be happy or having fun to move fast.
We’re going to blink and it’s already going to be next month, or next year and most of us aren’t having enough fun for that.
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