There are few things that make you more aware of the passage of time than your child asking you who Diana was, or exactly what we are remembering on 9/11 each year.
For Gen Z, 9/11 is a chapter in their history books, a date they learn about from their parents and in school. But for those of us who lived through it, it was a visceral experience, imprinted on our minds – one that changed how we viewed safety, travel, and international relations forever.
We will always remember where we were when it happened, just as we remember the news coming through that Diana the Princess of Wales had died. Now Gen Z watch Diana’s story brought to life in The Crown. Then it moves on to the next season and they move on with it.
In turn, as Gen Z grow older, they are likely to find themselves explaining moments of their youth to future generations – events like the rise of TikTok, the Covid-19 lockdowns, the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement, or the election of the first female vice president – and hopefully president – in the United States.
They’ll share how climate change discussions have shaped their perspectives and how movements for social justice have become a part of her everyday reality. These will be their defining moments, the stories that they will have to find words to convey, to a generation that can only imagine.
They will also be able to talk positively about the cultural shifts that come with time. Gen Z has grown up in a world where conversations around mental health, diversity, and inclusion are much more open. I see progress where she might see just the status quo.
This all brings home the fact that the passage of time is a constant. At times we might want to speed it up, at others, slow it down. As we grow older, there is a lot that time teaches us. We learn from our mistakes; we discover what it important to us and what is not. We learn to forgive, to let go, and to move on.
We mature, we heal. We grow, we change, and we evolve as time moves forward with us. We pass on wisdom. We find purpose and meaning, sometimes in later time, sometimes much earlier.
Time reveals the fleeting nature of life’s moments. The lives of our parents and grandparents becomes our history. The defining moments in their lives will not be the ones in ours.
The world wars and the economic hardship that followed, the women’s rights movements, the space race and moon landing. They are brought to life through history books and shared stories, but they are not my generation’s stories to tell.
My daughter and her friends will never fully understand Chernobyl, Challenger, Madeleine McCann, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rise of punk culture, the Falklands War, the Live Aid Concert, the wedding of Charles and Diana, and the release of Nelson Mandela. My generation will inform the one that followed us.
As Gen X, we have experienced a unique blend of analog and digital life, from Cold War tensions and economic shifts to the rise of digital technology and globalised culture. We have witnessed both the end of old political structures and the rise of a digitally interconnected world.
While we may not have lived through the same experiences, the emotions they stir – from fear, hope, sadness, resilience, to celebration and excitement – are universal. It is in this shared understanding, we find a bridge between the past and the future, connecting us through the narratives that shape our lives.
And we all, at some stage in our lives, learn a great deal through the passage of time, by reflecting on our lives and the events, both global and personal, that have shaped them. We look towards the time we have left and how we want to live them.
We learn that happiness comes from within. We learn that what really matters is the people we surround ourselves with and the connections we have, not the material things we own.
We learn that time is precious, as humans it is finite, it is not to be wasted. It’s too short to worry about our appearance, our weight, the size of our house, the size of our bank balance, and so the list goes on.
Time is to be enjoyed right now in this moment. And in the next, and the next …
