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There's something to be said for the proportion theory -- when you're six, a year is one-sixth of your life, so it seems longer -- but I mainly hold to a different theory:
When you're young, you try and learn new things every day. When you look back over a year, it's full of milestones and things that stick out vividly -- the scraped knee from the first no-training wheels bike ride, first day at school, first day in a new house, first report cards. Everything is new and everything sticks in your mind. When you look back, the year seems so long because it's crowded with things.
Flash forward 30 years. You've got a job, a house, maybe kids, whatever. You do the same things all year. Sure, new things come up and have to be learned or dealt with, but in nowhere near the number that they did when you were young. You look back over the year and see -- not much new. And when one year looks much like another in memory, they tend to blend together until the past five or six years seem like just one.
Is there an answer? Sure. Live a full life. Make changes. Don't get stale. Easy to say, not so easy to do when you get past 30 or 35 and start to settle. But it's possible. I got laid off my old job about 14 months ago, moved into a new field, decided I liked it, and am now in an accelerated masters program, jumping from school to school as a student teacher, and working my ass off. When I think about my old job, it seems like 14 years ago, not 14 months.
Change. More change means more vivid memories. And the more you remember, the longer your life becomes.
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