How to Make Time Go Faster

Here's a scenario that I've often experienced during a canvassing program:

Friend and I are together in the room or riding to territory some morning and suddenly one of us perks up, "Hey! It's already Tuesday!"
The other one replies rather glumly, "Aww....it's only Tuesday...?"
"Time is flying! The week is halfway over!"
"The week is only half-finished? We still have two days left! Time is going so slowly."

But time was passing at the same rate for both of us! We were doing the same job and had the same schedule, so why did we experience time at different rates?

And the mystery will continue after a word from our sponsors - 

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Just kidding. But really, I'm going to be changing the purpose of my blog from now on. I'll still give updates on what I'm doing (once I start doing something really interesting again) but other than that, I will be broadening my writing to include things like descriptive pieces, narratives, persuasive essays, my own opinions on issues, and many other types of writing. I want to become a more proficient, concise (and more professional) writer, so why not use my blog to practice? 

By the way, if I write something that needs help or is hard to understand, let me know. That's one way I'll learn to do better. Other ways of improvement involve time passing, me looking back at my work, and realizing what needs to be imp - oh, speaking of time -

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So the passing of time is a concept that I've played with for years. (no joke) Since the age of ten or so, I've asked myself tough questions like, what is time? How do I relate to it? 

Why are some people chronically late, and others always on "time"? 

How is it that to God, a thousand years are like a day? 

How is it sometimes to us that a day can feel like a thousand years? 

How will it feel to live forever, and not ever worry about running out of time? 

I was pondering this phenomenon the other day, while painting the doors inside an old trailer we are renovating for new staff members. My friend Sarah was there, stripping wallpaper in the kitchen, and occasionally exclaiming in disgust at the old, dirty state of the trailer. (It had been just bachelors living there for a while, after all)
I was carefully stepping around the pile of tools on the kitchen floor when I stopped, paint bucket in hand, and asked, "Sarah, what makes time go faster?"

What do you think she said?

Without pausing to think, she answered, "It depends on how preoccupied your mind is."

Wow. What a simple, yet profound answer. It makes sense, too. When you are doing something you really don't enjoy, your mind is not preoccupied; it's focused how much you don't like what you are doing, and how slow time is going. For instance, if I am not enjoying my day at work and it seems like the day is taking forever, it's probably because I'm more focused on time passing than on the job itself. 

This is pretty common sense, but I'm learning a lesson. If I want time to seem like it's going faster, I have to actually stop thinking about time and focus on something else, like choosing to enjoy what I'm doing. Being thankful for what is is what will preoccupy my mind from focusing on what isn't.

Another idea is that perhaps we are so time-oriented because we either live in regret over or longing for the past, or worry or anticipation of the future, without bothering to live in the present. We are always so conscious of past and future, and tend to overlook the present.

So during eternity, though time will pass, I'm pretty sure we just won't be thinking about it. We will be so focused on life in the moment that we won't really pay much attention to forever.

So although I haven't gotten all my questions about time answered, I have come to realize that the rate of time passing is based on your perception of it, and you can change that rate by changing your mindset.

Interesting. It's worth some thought.