I have been thinking about daylight savings the past few weeks as it approached. Most articles, blog posts, Facebook updates, etc. will be around the idea that daylight savings is not practical. I wholeheartedly concur, but I do not think it is useless. I waited a few days after the time change in hopes that readers have recovered from this twice year inconvenience and will hear me out.
Before starting, I have to admit that I am obsessed with time. Our house has numerous clocks, including a giant one in our great room that hovers over us. At Contegix, we had a core value of “Respect People, Data, and Time”. I firmly believe those are the (only?) three things one can not restore once squandered. I grew up believing that being on time was considered tardy. For me, time is a currency that I withdraw from a bank account every second. Yet, I can never get an account balance of how much remains.
The benefit of this is that I remain diligent on where I spend my time. It allows me to unemphatically and respectfully say “no”. This has become critical lately as my free (defined as in “available”) time is often mislabeled as free (defined as in “not of value”) time. As the quote goes “Show me your calendar, and I’ll show you what you prioritize.”
Given this, why would I defend daylight savings, especially when it just took an hour?
Losing an hour is a reminder of how powerful 3600 seconds can truly be. I see people yawning through the first few days after DST. The impact is not merely anecdotal. Traffic accidents go up the Monday following DST with tired drivers cited as the reason. In addition, a 2008 Swedish study found that the risk of having a heart attack increases in the first three days after switching to DST in the spring. (See https://www.timeanddate.com/time/dst/daylight-saving-health.html.)
Daylight savings is an hour lost to the nothingness, but how many of us waste an hour on the trivial and simple? Mindlessly watching TV instead of reading the book that’s been sitting on desk for 6 months. Complaining about being overweight instead of doing the recommended daily cardio or meditate. Staring at a handheld screen waiting for the next Facebook update instead of embracing the loved one next to us or volunteering at a charity.
My defense of DST? Maybe it’s the reminder all of us need about how powerful one hour can be.