Time: Passed

2026-01-29 - 08:22

Listen to the author’s reading of the article. Your browser does not support the audio element. This is going to be my year. Leaving 2025 behind, this is a new chapter! New Year—new me. The new year arrives, and with it the familiar phrases. Nothing truly changes except the date on the calendar, yet our symbolic thinking turns this moment into a reset, a chance to edge closer to who we want to become. We make resolutions. Yet a year later, we find ourselves seduced by the same promise of a fresh start, beginning another race toward change. Year after year, each one feeling shorter than the last, as if time keeps slipping away before we get the chance to make use of it. But why? When I was in elementary school, our Armenian textbook had a section called “Chest of Wisdom”—a phrase beside a cartoonish chest of gold. One time, it read: “Time is gold.” Our teacher told us that time is the most valuable thing, and that no matter how rich you are, you’ll never be able to buy it. But what exactly is this thing? I knew I was supposed to know, but my six-, or seven-year-old self was tired of pretending. “What is time?” I asked the teacher. She stressed “What do you mean!? How can you not know what time is!?” and carried on with her class. Saint Augustine asked the same question centuries earlier in Confessions: “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not.” Imagining this as an apology note from my teacher is soothing, but what brings more comfort is knowing the confusion is universal. Time is baffling. Even after decades of progress in physics and a better understanding of how it behaves, the question of what time fundamentally is still stands unanswered. A disappointing conclusion for an inner six—or-perhaps-seven—year-old somewhere in the world. But what we do know is that time itself only speeds up near the speed of light or under extreme gravity. Since we don’t have access to those conditions living on Earth, the feeling that time is accelerating isn’t physical, it’s perceptual. When Hovhannes Tumanyan’s grandfather lay on his deathbed at 108 years old, he said with a heavy heart, “Oh hollow world, was it worth being born for only two days?” No surprise a year can feel fast. The first article published on EVN Report this year was Sheila Paylan’s column, where she writes that 88% of resolution makers fail within two weeks. Our resolutions are often aspirations to quit all bad habits, adopt perfect routines, start big transformations—all at once. We try to become our desired selves as soon as possible, as if building the spire of a castle at the height we want right away. Unsurprisingly, in most cases, it collapses. But are we rushing to fight the fast passage of time? To get as much as we can from it? But what if taking time is actually the shortcut to our goals? When everything is done in a rush, nothing is properly noticed, corrected, or remembered. When I was studying at Hetq Media Factory, we were given a reporting assignment out of town. This was to be my very first “real” experience reporting. Naturally, I was stressed. Many things needed to be done and many things could go wrong. Each day, we were also assigned to write a list in a private chat, which had to include: The photo of the day A personal, professional, or worldview-related discovery from the day Ratings out of 10 for the day and ourselves I found this exercise quite irritating. Another to-do list on top of an already overwhelming one? I wasn’t sure we needed it. But the irritation didn’t last long. Knowing I had to rate my day and myself, I began pausing to notice how I felt about things. It turned out to benefit me. I became more attentive to how and why I was doing certain things, more present in my surroundings, actively looking for a moment that could become the photo of the day or the discovery. The exercise didn’t just avoid interfering with my work, it made it more productive, insightful, and genuinely enjoyable. I kept turning off the stress-driven autopilot and switching into full manual control. Thanks to that, if you asked me how the reporting went, instead of saying “meh,” I could tell you many stories in detail and what I learned. Memory is one of the key factors that determines how we perceive the passage of time. For children, each day feels long because their minds constantly process new information. When they look back, their memory is dense, filled with many moments that stand out, creating the illusion of slower time. As we grow older, repetition, routine, and obligations force us to move quickly through places and situations that we know by heart. Fewer impressions stand out, and months compress into a minute-long blur in retrospect. Beyond slowing time, the exercise opened another door. We often begin with an idealized vision, a single sweeping measure of what a productive year should look like. But when I slowed down and paid closer attention, I noticed something important. Even without traveling the world, achieving my dream physique, and shedding every bad habit, I had still changed in meaningful ways since the year before. That’s worth considering. I began to notice that emotions are never fixed. Anger can turn into gratitude through acceptance. A stronger sense of self-worth can turn indifference into anger, which is a good thing. Some negative aftertastes will stop feeling so sharp. When I thought about what caused those changes, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that they were signs of growth. Slowing down and checking how I felt helped me see the unmet needs I’d unintentionally buried deep under the rush to get everything done. Noticing and prioritizing those needs gave my whole system a fundamental sense of calm. Once my daily habits stopped revolving around soothing stress, I suddenly had the time and energy to move forward. Here, behavior starts to change naturally. The lack of constant background stress can allow us to smoke 19 cigarettes a day instead of 20—rather than adding another layer of stress by trying to quit all at once. The absence of piled up hunger (mixed with stress) at the end of the day can be the first step toward a healthier lifestyle, later transforming the quality of sleep, and then our productivity. These changes aren’t visible from afar and rarely make it to an Instagram year wrap-up, but they are the foundation for any castle—which is essentially us and our most basic well-being. I’m not saying the vision of a castle is wrong. Not at all. In fact, I believe having long-term goals is essential (and falling into extremes is rarely productive). But trying to build a castle without a concrete foundation first is cruel to ourselves. Isn’t that why a new beginning, a new year, feels so attractive? We all want to grow and have the dream life. But to do something of real value, sometimes we have to perform seemingly inefficient acts. They might appear fruitless at first, but they never end up that way. And from here, from gradually building ourselves up—every moment, whether it’s a Wednesday afternoon or new year’s day, becomes a continuation, not a fresh start; even after we’ve fallen short. So, what is life even about? I think the chest of wisdom and my teacher weren’t fooling us after all. Maybe time really is gold. Isn’t it the currency of life? Maybe true success comes from creating the space to use our time for our true benefit. Time will pass whether we do something with it or not. That’s exactly why it’s so important to use it with care, patience and attention. It’s about time. Author’s note: I owe heartfelt gratitude to Harutyun Mansuryan, who gave us the exercise in Hetq Media Factory, and my dear therapist—M.A. Comment Cover photo by Roubina Margossian. LIFESTYLE Telling Times From the passage of time to escape rooms and ski slopes, this month’s issue of SALT brings together stories that move between reflection and play, the intimate and the unexpected. The eclectic blend on offer explores multiple layers of life and living, from the curious to the unapologetically offbeat.