"Time is free, but it's priceless, you can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back."

- Harvey McKay

This time of year finds me contemplating how time flies. Annually, I say, "Where did the summer go!" And then, that kicks me into thinking about past summers and the future thoughts of "Christmas is only 3 months away!" In retail, we are opening shipments of boxes of feeders, nature gifts, and books that we hope will help customers while they shop for Christmas.

"The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot."

- Michael Althusuler

But back to time−can time really go slow or fast? I know clocks can, but time. . . that is a notion that is very subjective. When I was attending PS66, I thought vacations would never come. As a child, waiting for Christmas tried my patience and curiosity. Summers seemed to go on forever. I loved camp, the reading club at the library, playing canasta on the porch hunkered down under blanket-tents to avoid the rain, acting out our favorite TV or movie themes, and playing hours of kickball until the fireflies danced so brightly-encouraging us to wind down the day's activities. Dad would fire up the truck, we'd climb in the bed, and off we would go for a moonlight cool-off drive. Summers were magical. They were packed full of family and friends. Thankfully they seemed to last forever because some sixty years later, they are still vivid. Research says that when we remember time as long, we record more of the experience.

"Idleness makes hours pass slowly and years swiftly.

Activity makes the hours short and the years long."

- Cesare Pavese

So why does time seem to go faster nowadays and speed up even more each year? In our minds we know that time doesn't change, so researchers have studied this phenomenon. They compared older adults and college students; the subjects all felt time passing faster in their lives during the study compared to when they were younger. Researchers suggest that the notion of time speeding up begins in your late twenties. Their hypothesis is that as we age, we practice patterns and routines. It takes us less time to run through the routines. It's as if our treadmill is speeding up. Also they have a term "forward telescoping" which is when we think that past events have happened more recently than they actually did. Often we try to recall events like marriages, deaths, and births. Asked when an event took place, I may say just a couple of years ago, but, in reality it could be ten or fifteen years ago. Time has slipped by!

I do know that how I perceive time depends on my emotions, my ability to attend, the fun factor, my health, and my internal tempo clock. I look at a clock often, check my phone or computer for the time or ask the person next to me if they have a watch. Time is important and deserves to be contemplated. Take the time now as the seasons change or as you are celebrating a birthday or life event to enjoy the present. Think about time and how you spend it. It is probably one of the most valuable things you have. Think about time and how as a business you may waste your employees or customers resource. Think about your time and how you cannot reclaim those moments you have ignored. Celebrate that we have this time where we can uplift those around us and make activities in the seconds, connections in the minutes, stories in the months, and memories in the years. "Tempus fugit." (Virgil - Time flies!)