Time is on your side.

Perhaps the most important economic advantage nubile NeXters have is something they rarely think about: time. What most young people severely underappreciate, however, is that our perception of the passage of time speeds up with age.

Tempus Fugit.

At the gut level, most of us agree that time flies. By the end of high school, we sense that every year of life seems to go by faster than the year before. Some of us may not think about it until it spawns a mid-life crisis or when we return to our old house or school years later. Like Alice in Wonderland, we find our self asking, “Gee, did I really spend a part of my life here? Where did the time go? Were these rooms really this small?”

In On the Perception of Time (2010), mathematicians F. Thomas Bruss and Ludger Rüschendorf describe the perception of time passing faster with growing age. One novel hypothesis they describe is Logtime (“Logarithmic Time”) by engineer James Kenney (2002). According to Kenney, we think about the years of our lives in terms of decades: our teens, twenties, thirties, etc. Our time perception changes as we get older, more or less in a ratio approximate to the square root of our age. Thus, the older we get the faster time seems to move, he says. Ask anyone with gray hair and you’ll discover that this progression is near universal:

In grade school, we measured time in hours or days. Time flowed like frozen molasses. Riding in the car for more than 20 minutes was torture (“Are we there yet?”). Waiting for Halloween, our birthday, or Christmas was nearly unbearable. Summer days went on and on, and each afternoon we whined to our parents about not having enough to do.
In high school, we measured time in weeks or months. An afternoon was usually enough time to get things done. The slowest clocks were found in history or economics class and it seemed that we would never get out of “prison.” Eventually we tossed our hat in the air and stampeded for the exit. Although many did not realize it then, this was a halcyon time of life.
In college, we measured time by the number of semesters under our belt. In the afternoon, we hung out with friends and weekends were for new experiences. The lucky ones had a summer job that paid for wheels or travel. After the first two years we were a little anxious about what we wanted to do after graduation, but not really too worried about it.
By our 30s, we measured time in years. Time seemed to pass quickly because we were mentally juggling activities such as work, shopping, cleaning up, having dinner, raising kids, seeing friends, etc. Most afternoons were a blur. After dinner, when we looked back at the first activity of the day, it seems like ages ago.
By our 40s and 50s, we measured time in decades. With each passing year, the days and weeks seemed to zip by even more quickly. Is March almost over? Didn’t they play the Super Bowl just last week? Wow, the annual insurance premium is due again?

Growing up is optional!

What’s the upshot? NeXters, if you want to succeed, you must become acutely aware of how important it is to make good use of time while you are young. Here are some advantages you may not have thought about:

Fewer responsibilities. Not being forced to make difficult financial choices because you have children, a mortgage, sick parents, or a business to run gives you a lot of freedom that isn’t available to adults. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Fewer resources. You’re unlikely to have much in the way of income or assets, so managing finances are a snap. With no dog in the fight, do you really care about all the barking on Wall Street? No, but learn from their mistakes.
Breadth of experience. Don’t let others define you. Dare to cut the rope and find out what it is that you really like to do. Like cattle in Chicago, the future for many Baby Boomers will not be what they expected.
Failed? Start over! If you lose everything at 20, it’s usually not that hard to rebuild. Losing everything at 50 can be devastating, both financially and emotionally.
Enjoy life longer. Build a good career for yourself at 25 and you will enjoy fifty years of prosperity. Someone who does so at 60 will only get 15 years worth. Do the math.
Just do it. You can accomplish things that older people won’t even attempt. When others say “You can’t do that!” you have that power to say, “Yes, I will!”