In the U.S., today marks the start of Daylight Savings Time. In the middle of the night we moved the clocks forward by one hour.
I was thinking about the concept of Daylight Savings Time, the Spring Forward and Fall Back.
We typically don’t want to go backwards in life. Yet when we change the clocks in the fall most people consider it a good thing because we “gain” an hour. We get an extra hour to sleep or chance for a do-over.
Conversely, we spend so much energy rushing to get to the future, eager to move to the next thing. And, yet, when we “spring forward” an hour in the spring, we complain about losing an hour.
Didn’t we get what we wanted? A faster transit to the future? But suddenly we’re not ready for it. We want the hour back.
Time is so funny.
Where did the hour go? Where did we lose it? It didn’t just disappear. Did it?
Is there a time lost-and-found where we can go to retrieve it?
There’s no question that the time change can wreak havoc with our schedules, especially the body’s inner rhythms.
For many people the change is more than a trivial annoyance of logistics when coordinating meetings.
Studies show that in the week following the clock change in the spring and fall car accidents increase.
Personally, I feel like just as the sun is beginning to wake me again in the morning, we change the clocks so that my wake up time is now again in darkness.
But that hour isn’t lost. It was just allocated somewhere else.
It’s also interesting to notice how many people complain about losing an hour, when we lose time every day to things that aren’t truly important.
The best way to find the lost hour is to forget about the clocks and enjoy the beauty of the present moment. Clock time is just a fabrication, a human construct to put people on a schedule.
Your body knows what time it is. Get outside. Be in nature. Slow down and savor the moment.
When I do that, I find all the time I thought I lost.
Love it? Hate it? What do you think? Don't hold back...