I have found that many people struggle to remember when something happened unless it occurred on September 11th, 2001. Generally speaking, they use that date as a time benchmark and lump everything into a "Before 9/11" or "After 9/11" category, without even attempting to think logically about what year certain events occur in. For example:
"Hey, that was a fun Vegas trip in 2003!" (Even though the trip was in 2006)
"Mike's wedding was in 1995, right?" (It was in 1999)
"The White Sox; 2003 World Champions!" (They won it all in 2005)
I happen to possess an outstanding memory, and perhaps this is why my understanding of those who do not share that innate ability is limited. But it is sickening that people don't even know their own lives; they don't know WHY they couldn't have possibly taken that Vegas trip in 2003, or that Mike didn't even know his future wife in 1995. Unless we go back and examine receipts or look at old invitations, all we have is 3 or 4 important dates in our lives that we use as landmarks and the rest is just hazy conjecture, and what's worse is that we're content to be ignorant of the subtleties of our life's timeline.
When speaking with friends or acquaintances, I've often corrected them on what year an event occurred in THEIR LIFE (or, I've refrained if I didn't know the person that well and didn't want to seem like a stalker). Like, a person will think that they were hired at a company one year, and I will remind them that they were still a junior in college that year. How can I have a better picture of someone else's timeline? This ignorance of oneself is highly disturbing to me, and I think it highlights a major societal problem: we have higher standards for other people than we have for ourselves.
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