When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

by Daniel H. Pink

our perspective on time shapes the orientation of our lives and therefore the goals we pursue. When time is expansive and open-ended, as it is in acts one and two of our lives, we orient to the future and pursue “knowledge-related goals.” We form social networks that are wide and loose, hoping to gather information and forge relationships that can help us in the future. But as the horizon nears, when the future is shorter than the past, our perspective changes. While many believe that older people pine for yesteryear, Carstensen’s body of work shows something else. “The primary age difference in time orientation concerns not the past but the present,” she wrote.25 When time is constrained and limited, as it is in act three, we attune to the now. We pursue different goals—emotional satisfaction, an appreciation for life, a sense of meaning. And these updated goals make people “highly selective in their choice of social partners”