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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Your sense of time
Reading it that way changes what you are looking at. The question is not whether someone cares but whether their reach is what you would expect at their age, and with ADHD it often runs some years behind. That is a gap which closes slowly rather than a fault to be told off for. Meanwhile somebody else usually holds the far end of the horizon, openly and temporarily, while the person builds tools that do the same job.
We created you from dust, then a drop of fluid, then a clinging form, then a lump of flesh (Quran 22:5). The passage takes a whole life in stages, which is the scale this kind of growth happens on.
الحج
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ إِن كُنتُمۡ فِي رَيۡبࣲ مِّنَ ٱلۡبَعۡثِ فَإِنَّا خَلَقۡنَٰكُم مِّن تُرَابࣲ ثُمَّ مِن نُّطۡفَةࣲ ثُمَّ مِنۡ عَلَقَةࣲ ثُمَّ مِن مُّضۡغَةࣲ مُّخَلَّقَةࣲ وَغَيۡرِ مُخَلَّقَةࣲ لِّنُبَيِّنَ لَكُمۡۚ وَنُقِرُّ فِي ٱلۡأَرۡحَامِ مَا نَشَآءُ إِلَىٰٓ أَجَلࣲ مُّسَمࣰّ ى ثُمَّ نُخۡرِجُكُمۡ طِفۡلࣰ ا ثُمَّ لِتَبۡلُغُوٓاْ أَشُدَّكُمۡۖ وَمِنكُم مَّن يُتَوَفَّىٰ وَمِنكُم مَّن يُرَدُّ إِلَىٰٓ أَرۡذَلِ ٱلۡعُمُرِ لِكَيۡلَا يَعۡلَمَ مِنۢ بَعۡدِ عِلۡمࣲ شَيۡـࣰٔ اۚ وَتَرَى ٱلۡأَرۡضَ هَامِدَةࣰ فَإِذَآ أَنزَلۡنَا عَلَيۡهَا ٱلۡمَآءَ ٱهۡتَزَّتۡ وَرَبَتۡ وَأَنۢبَتَتۡ مِن كُلِّ زَوۡجِۭ بَهِيجࣲ
People, [remember,] if you doubt the Resurrection, that We created you from dust, then a drop of fluid, then a clinging form, then a lump of flesh, both shaped and unshaped: We mean to make Our power clear to you. Whatever We choose We cause to remain in the womb for an appointed time, then We bring you forth as infants and then you grow and reach maturity. Some die young and some are left to live on to such an age that they forget all they once knew. You sometimes see the earth lifeless, yet when We send down water it stirs and swells and produces every kind of joyous growth
Qur’an 22:5read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In 132 children aged 7 to 11, differences in how they perceived future time and how vividly they pictured future events were related to how long they could hold out for a bigger reward. A review of how foresight develops in young children adds a caution: the tasks used often confound it with planning, memory and plain self control, so the measurements are shakier than they look. Together they support a developing capacity without giving you a yardstick for any one child.
Burns P, O'Connor PA, Atance C, McCormack T. (2021). More Later: Delay of Gratification and Thought About the Future in Children.. Child development doi
Hudson JA, Mayhew EM, Prabhakar J. (2011). The development of episodic foresight: emerging concepts and methods.. Advances in child development and behavior doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Thinking usefully about next month is a capacity that develops over years, and it develops later for some people.
If it is not happening now, it is often not being thought about at all. Not faintly, not somewhere in the background. Not there.
A clock with hands shows you how much is left. A number only tells you where you are, which is why the hour can vanish while you keep checking it.
Knowing that leaving it until Thursday went badly last month does not change what Monday feels like. The memory is there, but it turns up flat, with none of the pressure still attached to it.