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Assume you must drive to a destination 10 miles away. If the road is clear and you drive fast, the distance does not feel like 10 miles. It is a breeze. It feels like a short ride.

Now, drive that same distance, but with heavy traffic. You must drive slowly. It takes you twice as long to cover the distance. Those same 10 miles feel like a hundred. What does this tell us?

Our perception of distance is not a function of distance. It is a function of time.

This insight led me to reflect on what causes the perception that time flies, that life is short?

The more technologically developed a country is, the more efficiently it is run—the faster time flies there. Everything works. No delays. One video meeting follows another. Calls, decisions, actions nonstop. No interruptions. No breaks where you do nothing. “Time is money” is the driving slogan. You are nonstop busy and before you know it, the day is over.

In highly efficient societies, time moves fast—and life feels short. Our ancestors lived shorter lives. Medicine was primitive. Conditions were harsh. Yet their lives may have felt longer to them then to us.

I took once a safari excursion in South Africa. We started the day at 8 am. After a while, I felt it must be lunch time. I looked at my watch. It was only 9 am. The rhythm of nature is slow. Compare it to the hassle of New York City... there I believe it is 9 am (I started the day at 8), but when I look at the watch it is already 4 pm.

Now close your eyes and recall an important event from three years ago. Does it feel to you that it happened in the distant past ? Or does it feel like it happened recently?

I did this exercise. The attack on Gaza feels like it happened last week although it has happened two years ago.

If two years feel like a week and let us assume I have two years left to live (I am 88 years old) then, how I experience life, I have one week more to live.

We live in an efficient, fast-moving society. Time flies. We live a longer life, but it feels short.

In a vacation—especially one where we slow down, do little, even allow ourselves to be bored—life feels longer. Meditate and life will feel longer. The common denominator? BEING PRESENT.

A busy environment keeps our mind on the future and on the past. Being present means being integrated, feeling being part and parcel of where we are. We feel alive.

My friends and family tell me to continue working. It gives meaning to my life. It may extend my life, they say.

Perhaps they are right, but there is a paradox: I might live two more years physically… yet feel as if I did not live at all. Working intensely as I do, I will be too busy using life, instead of being alive.

To feel life, one has to give life a chance to be felt.

What activities make you feel present? For me it is good art. A good movie. A good show, a good lecture, a great garden, whatever DISengages my mind to the point I forget who I am and where I am. It is those experiences that is worth living for and that constitute “life”.

To feel living long make your “busy days” short and be present more.