The Gift of Knowing It Won’t Last

The Gift of Knowing It Won’t Last

There’s a movie called About Time that I highly recommend you watch if you haven’t seen it. I don’t want to give too much away, but the premise is that a father and son can both travel back in time and revisit moments in their own lives they’ve already lived.

At one point, the Dad gives his son, Tim, a profound life lesson. He suggests that he live an ordinary day exactly as he normally would, with all the rushing, irritation, distraction, and the small stresses that come with being human. And then go back and live that same day again.

But here’s the important part: he tells him to live it “almost exactly the same.” He isn’t supposed to go back and fix the day or make better choices.

The first time, he experiences it with all the usual tensions and worries. The second time, he notices. He notices the people around him. He pays closer attention to conversations. He sees the humour in things that frustrated him the first time. The day itself is identical, but because he isn’t so caught up in getting through it, he experiences it differently. Eventually, he gets so good at this that he doesn’t need to go back anymore. He learns to live the first version of the day as though it were already the second.

Tim is practising something psychologists call perceived temporal scarcity. It’s the idea that when we remember an experience won’t last, and that this particular moment won’t come again, we tend to value it differently. The moment itself hasn’t changed. Our attention has. We notice what makes this coffee, this dinner, this conversation, this drive home different from all the others. Because even if we do it again tomorrow, it will never be exactly this version again. Maybe that’s the gift of knowing it won’t last. We pay a little more attention to the present moment.

Want to know how to improve your relationships?

Be present and stop assuming there'll always be another moment like this. We hope there’ll be more time with the people we care about, and hopefully there will be. But when we assume there’s always another conversation, another dinner, or another chance to connect, it’s easy to give only part of our attention to the moment that’s happening now.

Presence changes the quality of our relationships. We listen more closely, ask better questions, and notice what someone is really saying. That’s where connection comes from, not from having the perfect conversation but from being fully engaged.

The same is true in the smaller interactions that make up our days. A few minutes with a colleague, a neighbour, someone at the gym, or the person who makes your coffee can feel more meaningful when we’re not rushing through them.

This exact moment, with this person, on this day, won’t happen again; knowing that can make us less likely to rush through it.

This is it.

One of the strange things about life is how much of it we spend trying to reach the other side. There’s a point just ahead of us that seems easier or more appealing than the one we’re in.

But life is made up of the mundane and the magical, the boring and the inspiring, the frustrating and the exciting. We tend to divide our days into the parts that matter and the parts we just need to get through. The waiting, the errands, the quiet dinners, the long drives, the ordinary conversations, and the moments we barely notice at the time are all part of the experience too.

Often, the moments that seem least important as we live them are the ones we remember most. Sitting around the kitchen after dinner. Driving someone somewhere. Hearing the same story for the tenth time. Making coffee in a quiet house. None of it feels extraordinary in the moment, but that doesn’t make it insignificant. This is it. This is life.

That’s what I like about the lesson in About Time. Tim doesn’t just go back in time to fix or create a perfect day; he learns how to notice the beauty in the day, as it was.

We don’t get to go back and relive a day, but we can borrow the perspective. Every once in a while, we can slow down and take in the small, fleeting moments that make up our lives. That’s the value of perceived temporal scarcity: recognizing that because this moment won’t last, it’s worth paying attention to while it’s here.

If we haven’t met before, I’m Shawna Campbell, a Life Coach on a mission to help you change your mind to change your life. Learn more about me and what I do at www.shawnacampbell.com

Want more insights like this delivered to you on a regular basis? My Think Again newsletter delivers mindset insights, practical tools and thoughtful reflections straight to your inbox. Sign up here!