How Does Our Perspective on Time Affect How We Live?

Time is a limited commodity. No amount of money or power can buy you more. It's the great equalizer. How you use, manage, waste or cherish it is individually determined. In addition, we all have a preferred style or orientation to time. Let's use travel as an example.

As an enjoyable vacation winds down, some of us become impatient to get home and move on to the next thing. Maybe that's you. But instead, you might be someone who tries to preserve or even expand every remaining moment. Either way, you'll attempt to lock these precious flashes into your memory bank with mental snapshots. 

But without effort and too quickly, the present soon fades into the past. How we experience time is relevant to travel, but also daily life. Understanding your time perspective can enhance your experience.

Stanford University professor emeritus Phil Zimbardo, author of "The Time Paradox," notes that we are all oriented to time in one of the following characteristic ways — past, present or future. According to his profile, I am future-oriented. What might your style be? Let's see.

Those of us in the future category are goal-driven, focused on the future consequences of our actions, and forward-looking in general. This style works well in life's busiest decades but may be less useful during our senior years.

Another category, the present-hedonic folks, are the pleasure seekers who enjoy things in real-time with less concern about tomorrow. Folks who live in the present tend to be open to experiences they didn't necessarily plan and don't need to check off their bucket list. If this style fits, you're probably most content with the moment-to-moment flow of your travel and even your daily life.

Past-oriented people make up the remaining category. If you compare current experiences with memories of past events or situations, this might be you. According to Zimbardo, past-oriented folks determine the value of travel by assigning a pleasure quotient to the comparison — better or worse and by how much?

If you tend to be past-oriented, you might compare the lasagna you just finished to the one you ate a time or two before at a different restaurant. This style is more analytical, rational and based less on emotional factors than is true for present-focused folks. Does this sound like you?

Our characteristic types are neither good nor bad, just different from one another. Future and past-oriented travelers provide a logical, systematic understanding of where travel fits into the human experience. These styles have great evolutionary value. 

Our distant ancestors, who chronicled the past and predicted the future, tended to be the shamans and storytellers of the tribe. Reviewing the past and predicting the future was critical to human survival.

Present-oriented people tend to have more fun at the moment, and every society needs this type of person to keep things from getting too serious. Savoring the present is an acquired skill worth the effort to cultivate. 

Also, by expanding the present-pleasant and then reviewing a trip in the past-positive, you can have both good feelings and pleasurable memories. Since, as Zimbardo's research indicates, we have characteristic ways of perceiving time, maintaining a present focus may require some work — if this isn't naturally how you see the world. Meditating, we attempt to keep our present-focus and notice our breathing, which exists only in the present moment.

Zimbardo points to another dimension of time — one that is age-related. In general, children are present-oriented, while adults favor the future. Older adults tend to preserve the past. 

As a future-focused older adult, I'm aware of the need to put my foot on the brake and try to prolong the present, particularly the pleasing moments and what's right while vacationing or just living my life. This takes some work, but it's particularly relevant to older folks with relatively short future timelines. Expanding the present is a vital goal.

Regardless of the type that best explains you, here are some strategies to shift or expand your time orientation:

• If you're naturally drawn to the past or future, notice these tendencies and gently nudge yourself toward the present moment. When you catch yourself reminiscing about the last time you were in Paris, as you sit at an outdoor café savoring your steaming latte and munching on a croissant, remind yourself that the people you see strolling by are there right now — not last time or next time. The weather is unique now, not needing a contrast with a warmer or sunnier last visit. The present can be pleasant without any backward reference — or simply less.
• Future-oriented travelers tend to spend their present moments imagining future trips, which makes sense in planning life but can steal from the here and now. Recently, on a river cruise through Austria, I was struck by how much conversation I overheard about planning the next trip. Busily sharing these thoughts with fellow travelers, these vacationers sat by a large picture window as the ship sailed into a new city — missing the present moment, unnoticed outside the window. Hello! Be here now!
• Again, if the future is your natural mode, keep that in mind as you travel. Learn to prolong the only moment that truly exists — this one you anticipated for months or maybe years. The first step involves gently guiding your awareness back to the present. Meditation, even for a few minutes daily, will make this process easier.
• Finally, remember that in your later years, there is significantly more time in your past than the future, while the present remains a constant. Perhaps there is less need to prepare for the future as you once might have. At the same time, dwelling too much in the past deprives you of the only genuine moments — the present.