How Are You Using the Extra Hour in Your Day?
Twice a year we follow this silly ritual of turning our clocks forward and backward. We follow this ridiculous ritual as a result of Congress. In 1966 the Uniform Time Act was enacted to provide the basic framework for switching between standard time and Daylight Saving Time. If you didn’t have a reason to dislike Congress before now, this should give you a good reason.
Actually, most people don’t complain when we get to “fall back” as we did this past weekend. The extra hour is cherished by many. The serious complainers come out in the spring when we are forced to “spring forward.” The loss of a single hour seems to be devastating to a large number of people. You would think the time change caused them to lose a week and a half.
Like most people I know, I would prefer we just pick a time and stick with it. The primary benefit of Daylight Saving Time (less energy consumption) has been proven insignificant, so I’m all for just leaving it alone and giving people one less thing to complain about. I’ve always enjoyed this quote from an unknown author regarding the ritual of changing our clocks:
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“Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket.”
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At the end of the discussion on changing our clocks, we all have the same thing: twenty-four hours in a day. We never lose an hour or gain an hour … it was reallocated. This coming Spring we’ll cut the foot off the bottom of the blanket and return it to the top. Same length blanket … same hours in a day. So, until the law is changed, we are stuck with this ridiculous ritual of turning our clocks forward and backward.
The real question we need to answer is how we use this “extra hour.” What did you do with it this weekend? Did you use it for something meaningful? Did you treasure an extra hour with a loved one? Did you use it to plan some way to make a difference in someone’s life? Did you use it to get caught up on work or projects around the house? The numerous online polls I’ve seen indicate most people used it to get an extra hour of sleep. Most don’t have enough time in the day to get everything done, but given some extra time, they used it to get sleep.
Regardless of how you used the hour this weekend, I’d like to challenge you to do something this week. Take an hour, any hour, … and give it away. The upcoming holidays are tough times for a lot of people. Shelters are full. Food pantries are in need of people to volunteer. Family, friends and communities need our time, talent, and treasure.
We often see the gift of extra time as an opportunity to do something for ourselves. I encourage you to find some time this week to use the gift to do something for others. If you do if from your heart, I can assure you the satisfaction you’ll receive will be much better than the satisfaction you would have gotten from doing something for yourself!
God bless you all!
Clint Swindall
© 2015 Clint Swindall — Clint is the president & CEO of Verbalocity, Inc., a personal development company with a focus on leadership enhancement. For information about how he can enhance employee engagement in your organization, please visit www.verbalocity.com, or contact him directly clint@verbalocity.com.
