The path less chosen

Memories are made of this, is a refrain from an old song and it talks about how we make our memories. As we get older, time flies and it could be because of how we see time and how we make memories. In a new book, The Art of Making Memories: How to Create and Remember Happy Moments by Meik Wiking. Published by William Morrow. Copyright © 2019 by Meik Wiking the idea of how to make memories is explored. According to the author, there is something called the reminiscence effect, or reminiscence bump. This bump is caused by the fact that we remember better new and novel things, and since those new and novel things decrease for us as we age, our memories are stronger of times when we were younger.

As teenagers, we experience our first breakup, our first love, our first kiss, our first time driving and these stay in our memories. In our twenties, we also experience many new events that also stay with us over time. In another post, I talked about how time flies and how we can change our perception to slow it down or speed time up. The way to slow downtime is to experience more firsts and break out of our daily routine. When we were teenagers and 20 somethings, we had many firsts but as we hit our 60’s these firsts are harder to find. We may have become jaded and this causes live to speed up. Experiencing firsts and changes of the scene play an important role in organizing the way we remember our lives.

If we want life to slow down, to make moments memorable and your life unforgettable, try to harness the power of firsts. In your daily routine, it’s also an idea to consider how you can turn the ordinary into something more extraordinary to help you remember the event. It may be little things. If you always walk down the path well-trodden, it might make the day feel a little more extraordinary if you walk down the path less chosen. If you are always walking the path less chosen then perhaps it would be nice to travel the path well-trodden.