In less than a month I will be turning 36, and believe it or not, before this past weekend I actually thought I was turning 35.  I find it mind-boggling that the last 15 years of my life have gone so fast.  For most people, life moves much faster as you get older. 

As a child, we can vividly remember certain events,  such as the summer we spent with our best friend, or that first trip to the beach with our family.  When we get older, however, we develop routines, because this is what’s expected of us, and what we expect of ourselves.  Routine gives us a sense of responsibility, a stable platform.  We start our professional careers, create a workout schedule, visit our favorite restaurants, and look forward to the weekend because it’s our only downtime.  All the while, life passes us by faster and faster.

Why is it that as adults life seems to move at a faster pace than when we were children?  The answer, believe it or not, has nothing to do with age.   You see, children see the world anew with each experience.  Most of the things we experience are a first; our first crush, our first road trip.  Each new experience creates a mark in our lifetimes that is recorded as a memory in our minds.  The more new experiences, the more memories we have of our life. 

As we grow older, and enter the mold that society and our parents have designed for us, life turns into a routine.   While routines can provide a level of comfort, they also fail to create unique memories for us.  Suddenly, you look back at your last fifteen years and everything flows as a single memory, creating in us an uneasy and anxious feeling that we are not really living the life we were meant to live.

What can we do to change this?  Well, we have to create unique memories from new experiences, just like we did as children or teenagers.  

One way of doing this is to start creating new opportunities for ourselves.  If an opportunity comes your way with the promise of taking you out of your routine, I urge you not to hesitate and say YES to it.  Get out of the mold that you’ve been comfortably living in, and dare to live outside the box. 

It does not mean that you have to quit your job and become a travel hobo, but it can be as simple as taking that vacation you’ve always wanted, whether that vacation is relaxing at a beach at an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean, backpacking through Central Europe, or traveling to Alaska in the Winter months to see the Aurora Borealis.  Give it a try and make the decision to make memories for yourself, because it’s these memories that will last a lifetime.