By: Jon Dusza
Imagine this: you have plans with your friend that you are not particularly excited for. A day or so before your plans are about to commence, your friend texts you and tells you that due to unforeseen circumstances, they have to push your plans back. This screws up your whole day. Now, suddenly, you have to either cancel your plans, or cancel some other plans. When you are at your engagement, you feel off; the hour difference has put you entirely out of whack, and now your day is ruined. In our personal lives, on an individual scale, an unexpected hour difference upends everything.
How, then, does society manage to survive when, twice a year, we change our entire clocks, our entire schedules by an hour? Now, I detest daylight savings as much, if not more than the next person. I think daylight savings is outdated and actively harmful to millions of our population. I could talk about it for hours. It is worth taking a moment, however, to step back and appreciate what a monumental achievement daylight savings time is for society.
I, and those I interact with, may be lucky; and by no means profess to know everything, but when was the last time you saw somebody show up for an event an hour late or an hour early as a result of daylight savings time? When was the last time a store did not open on time because of daylight savings? Our whole community decides to change our perception of time itself twice a year, and everybody just goes on as normal, taking it in nearly perfect stride.
There are a lot of negatives to get caught up on in life. Daylight savings itself is something that, in my opinion, actively makes our lives worse. And yet, the way we handle the days immediately following daylight savings is a nearly monumental feat. How often can we get all of society to agree on anything? For us to all say that we are moving everything back or forward by an hour, and for us to all do it, is nothing less than a miracle. Nevertheless, we do. It is a small thing, but it is something that each of us – even when we are losing an hour of daylight or an hour of sleep – can take pride in the way we face. It is difficult and sometimes tone deaf to say that there is a bright side to everything, but if we look for one, we can find one more often than we expect. If we do, life can be a lot happier.
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