A guest post on ZenHabits takes on the issue of a fast paced world and the benefits of slowing it down. The guest post was written by Christopher Richards, author of SlowDownNow.org, a site I will take some time to look over … when I get a chance .

I had a conversation with my eight year old son the other day that has been on my mind since. He was asking when his “half-birthday” would fall … his birthday is in February, so his “half-birthday” will be in August. Anyway, he then asked if I would be getting him any presents for this so called “half-birthday”! I told him, of course, I wouldn’t and that Christmas is just a short time away and he would get plenty of gifts then. After the expected groan, I said, “But wasn’t Christmas just like … yesterday? And that was about half a year ago, and we only have another half of a year to go until the next one. Just be patient, it will come before you know it.” He rolled his eyes and said back, “Christmas was forever ago, and I don’t think I can wait that long before getting more presents!”

Aside from the obvious issue of overblown expectations regarding constant gift receiving, I was thinking about the difference between his and my perceptions of six months. The thing is, I feel like the flow of time has been increasing exponentially for the past decade or so. Ever since I got married, started working, had a child, started my own business, had a few more children … you get the idea. What is interesting to me is that as time has become more important and the supply of “ultimate time” (the time ’til I die!) diminishes, it seemingly moves faster. Not that time itself is speeding up, but my perception of it reads it differently. Like a baseball hitter in the zone can “slow the ball down” through awareness and perception. But right now, I see a fastball coming not at 95mph, but more like 250mph. And if six months feels like a day or two, that means I have about 4 months to live! And in about three weeks my eight year old son will move out of the house and starts his own “accelerated life line”.

This does have to do with my goals. Part of what I want to create is a slower lifestyle that is more apt to slower, more connective moments with my wife and kids. So, I don’t have the financial resources to do this right now, but I am learning that money is often irrelevant where creativity can pick up the slack. I need to figure out some strategies, tricks and actions I can take to slow my life down. And I need to do it now, not only for my own sake, but to try and teach my kids a better way of living. Example is everything in raising children and they will almost certainly stay on the path I helped establish for them.

So like I said, I will be reading more on SlowDownNow.org, but first I’ve got about two weeks of work to get through today!