I just refuse to hope for time to pass so I have no countdowns. I know that my student debt will be gone in roughly 3 years, which will be a fun game changer, but I plan to live A LOT of life in those 3 years, so I'm in no rush to see that time disappear.
I like the idea of not wanting time to disappear...it just means you are getting closer to the end of life! That said, I do have several different countdown clocks tied to specific dates at which, e,g, retirement benefits vest or become available to me. They range from 2 to almost 8 years away. When things feel more difficult, I look at the near term goal, and I say “That isn’t really that far away.” When it lightens up, I notice how much closer the 8 year goal is. Falling below 100 months in the distant goal was helpful psychologically, because I find that a month goes by amazingly quickly.
For me, it's not about being closer to death, necessarily, it's about really enjoying life NOW and not wanting to waste this time that I have.
Sure, I have things I'm looking forward to: possession of my new home in June, a major trip in a year, my student debt finally being paid off in a few years (I only make minimum payments), etc, etc
However, I'm not impatient for any of these dates to arrive, I'm not counting down anything, and I really don't have a very good sense of how long it is until any of these things happen.
I actually have a dreadful sense of macro time in general, I'm not good with dates and can't tell you how long ago anything was. Macro time is very amorphous for me, it's all kind of a blur now.
Why? Because I really enjoy my life and try to live in the present, and the time will pass in the background, which means at some point new and fun realities just appear.
In the meantime, I really want to enjoy *this* time before it disappears.
Once I decided to stop living for the future and really committed to the present, my life rapidly got A LOT better and rather quickly.
I immediately became far more demanding at work, I started making more time for friends and family, I bought the home I *really* wanted, and completely reorganized my life priorities in general. I just stopped making excuses for not living really really well.
If something isn't working for me right now, I start fixing it *right now*. I spent my entire life being future-focused and I never realized how it was such a slippery slope into just wasting my life.
I had 3 years that were just kind of a blur of stress and work. I see those as largely wasted years and never want to live like that ever again. No one was forcing me to, I just felt like I "had to" because of arbitrary savings goals that I had *set for myself*. I put myself in prison, for no good reason.
A brilliant therapist once asked me "whose job do you think it is to make sure your life is a good one?"
There used to be this laundry list of things I would do "once the debt is gone" or "once we retire".
No more.
I mean, things will change once I no longer have a $3000/mo student debt repayment, but it's no longer "once the debt is gone we will be able to...", now it's "I'm so curious to see where we'll be at by the time the debt is gone."
I now protect my present day happiness and satisfaction with ferocity and I actively challenge myself every time I find myself pining for the future.
I used to look to the future like a hungry person longing for a meal. Now I look to the future like someone who is nice and full after a good lunch but who knows that they're going out to a really nice restaurant for dinner.
I'm looking very forward to it, but I'm in no rush because I'm already full and I don't need it right now to feel good, but it makes me feel warm and fuzzy to know how much I'll enjoy it down the road.