Thoughts and Suggestions from an Aging Psychologist.
When Time Was Puzzling
When I was a little child, the concept of time was puzzling to me. I couldn’t really understand that, sometimes when I asked a grown up to do an activity with me, they responded with “I don’t have time” or “I don’t have the time.”
I also heard “I ran out of time,” and wondered where time went and why they ran out of it. Then I grew up and no longer puzzled about the concept of time. I suppose I didn’t have the time.
Time Becomes Baffling Again
Now that I’m an old person, I find that the concept of time has become a bit baffling again. My experience of time definitely has changed with age. This is not unique to me but seems to be fairly typical of older persons in general.
When we are among other older persons, we mention time quite a lot. We ask one another where it has gone and wonder how it has passed so quickly.
And those of us who engage with the old-old often recognize that it is not at all unusual for time to meet a fulcrum where it switches from not having enough time to time moving slowly and weighing heavily on one’s hands.
When and why that shift occurs is a new source of puzzlement for me. Is there a critical moment when the shift occurs? And do we sleep through that moment?
I’m not there yet but, knowing me, if I feel the shift coming on, I’ll want to stay up for it, feel it happening and solve the puzzle.
Chronos and Kairos: Two Concepts of Time
For now, maybe the best way of understanding this is to recognize that there can be different concepts of time—not just one. For that we can look back to the ancient Greeks who posited two concepts of time: Chronos and Kairos.
Chronos (the root of chronology, the scientific study of time) refers to time that can be measured. When we speak of an hour as being comprised of sixty minutes, and a day of twenty-four hours, that’s Chronos time. It is measurable, objective, and consensual.
Kairos, conversely, is qualitative, individually perceived time. It is neither specific nor consensual. It is subjective. It can’t be programmed or measured; it just appears. It changes with our feelings, contexts, and the temporal apportionment of our thinking: past, present, and future.
Kairos Time in the Old-Old
We might hear Kairos time—where time is experienced as moving ever so slowly—in the voices of the very old. Those of us who work with the old-old often hear such comments as “I’m ready to go. I don’t know what God is waiting for” from the very old.
This is not the voice of clinical depression. It is a statement of readiness, even joyful readiness, and a position of, mostly, just waiting. Languishing might appear passive, but it is not. And it’s on Kairos time.
Flourishing and Languishing
We understand and respect that our energy gradually lessens as we go through old age. In the earlier years, most of our journey is aligned with flourishing, rather than languishing. But gradually the trajectories meet and languishing comes to prevail.
If I had one piece of advice to offer midway through my own aging journey, it would be to make sure to learn new things… and then pass on what you’ve learned.
Your new learning comes with an extra benefit, and that is your wisdom for having lived, and learned, for (your age here!) years.
Make Time for Flourishing
At this season, when the Chronos calendar changes, make sure to “pencil in” plenty of opportunities to flourish, and to take advantage of those unplanned opportunities that come to you.
You have time.
Happy New Year 2026—Imagine!
Photo by the author’s family