The weight of time: How the pandemic changed our sense of living

1 天前

The weight of time: How the pandemic changed our sense of living

TIME used to feel like a river: constant, steady, a flow that we all paddled along.

There were markers like school bells, work hours, weekends, holidays, moments to look forward to, moments to rest.

We had a rhythm, whether we liked it or not. But something shifted when the world paused in 2020.

The pandemic did not just alter how we lived, but also how we measured life itself.

According to Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI) psychologist Dr Fauziah Hanim Abd Jalal, the disruptions to routines and the unusual, prolonged nature of the pandemic created a unique psychological phenomenon.

"Yes, I believe the perception of time changed for many people. For some, the pandemic years seem like a blur, with days blending into weeks, and months losing distinction.

"Others may feel as though time dragged on during the lockdowns, marked by monotony and isolation. This dual effect, where time feels both sped up and stretched out, has left a significant imprint on how people experience and reflect on time post-pandemic," she said.

Dr Fauziah said human brains rely on change and novelty to mark time.

"During the lockdowns, days were often repetitive, most people were working or studying from home, had limited physical movement, and reduced social interaction.

Without the external markers of change, like vacations, celebrations or even commuting, time felt homogeneous," she said.

She explained this led many to have a distorted memory of the period, where individual days are forgotten, and entire months blur together.

The psychological toll of this monotony likely compounded the effect, making the memory of lockdowns feel both lengthy and vague.

University of Michigan psychology professor Cindy Lustig said research is ongoing to determine how exactly the pandemic warped our sense of time—though it’s safe to say it did.

But a few things are likely contributing to that sense of distortion.

"In general, for any event in our autobiographical memory, we experience this thing that’s called telescoping... some parts of our memory get stretched out in time, whereas others get squished together," Lustig said.

THE SUSPENSION OF TIME

When the lockdowns first began, it was as though time itself stood still, suspended in a strange kind of limbo.

Days bled into one another, and weeks melted into months.

The hours became unmarked, no longer delineated by commuting, meetings or the usual noise of life.

We woke up, and it didn’t matter that it was a Monday or a Saturday.

What was the difference between the days when everything looked the same through the screen of our computer?

There was no rush, no appointments to chase—just a series of moments, not measured by anything except the passing of the clock.

And yet, it was as if time itself had also been compressed.

At times, it seemed to stretch endlessly, a slow ache as we waited for the world to turn back.

But in other moments, it slipped through our fingers so quickly, like sand falling too fast for us to hold.

"Pandemic time" became a term we all knew well, a way to explain the strange distortion that came with endless waiting and shifting routines.

It was a time of contradictions. It was long. It was short. It was both.

Dr Fauziah said for children and teenagers, whose developmental milestones and social interactions were disrupted, this effect is likely even more pronounced.

They had fewer opportunities for the distinct experiences that shape our sense of time, making three years feel both short in memory and long in impact.

"In sum, the pandemic reshaped how time was perceived and remembered, particularly for children and teenagers whose experiences of this period intersected with critical stages of growth and learning," she said.

THE RUSH TO CATCH UP

As restrictions began to ease, there was a sense of time suddenly speeding up, as though the world was trying to catch up on everything that had been delayed.

People rushed to return to “normal,” but it was a “normal” that was different now, altered, shifted by what we had just lived through.

And yet, the rushing never seemed to end.

Time began to feel like it was slipping faster than we could manage, like trying to catch a train that always seemed just out of reach.

The slow, measured pace of the pandemic gave way to the frenetic energy of trying to make up for lost time.

But here’s the thing—time can’t be caught up.

It’s not something you can hoard or collect.

The clock doesn’t reset. What you missed is gone. What you have now is the present.

But even then, the present feels like it’s not quite enough.

There’s an unspoken tension now, a quiet anxiety in the air, how do we use time when it feels so precious, so fleeting and yet, for so long, felt completely out of our control?

When everything stopped, we had no choice but to face the way we spent our days.

But when the world picked up again, how do we balance what was lost and what we now have?

THE NEW AWARENESS OF TIME

I find myself looking at time differently now, more aware of its fragility, more mindful of its passing.

During those months of uncertainty, it was easy to forget that time moves forward no matter how much we try to hold on to the past.

The pandemic forced us to confront time in a way that we hadn’t before.

It wasn’t just a ticking clock, it was a reminder of everything we could lose.

And yet, in that loss, there was also a kind of revelation.

Perhaps it’s the stillness we’ve all experienced that has made us realise just how much we need to breathe, how much we need to slow down.

Perhaps the pause was an invitation to rethink how we measure our days, not by the work we do or the tasks we complete, but by the moments we’ve had with others, the small acts of care, the slow and steady movements of life.

It’s a reminder that time, when given space to unfold, is never just a commodity, it’s the very fabric of living.

THE TIME WE CHOOSE TO KEEP

As we emerge into this new world, the question becomes: What will we keep? The frantic rush to catch up? Or the quiet space to be with ourselves, to savour the moments we now realise we once took for granted?

There’s a kind of wisdom that comes from the stillness.

Time, we realise, is not just for checking off lists.

It is for feeling, for being, for understanding that moments of rest, of joy, of stillness, are just as important as any deadline or goal.

In a world that moves ever faster, perhaps we’ve learned that the real luxury is not more time, but better time—time spent with intention, with mindfulness.

Time to rest. Time to reflect. Time to connect. Time to live.

And perhaps, in that quiet, in that stillness, we’ll finally find the time we were looking for all along.

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