Maybe you’ve noticed it. “It” being the fact that time seems to be getting shorter and shorter. Every day you start out with 24 hours worth of it and then, poof, it’s midnight and you are regretting that you wasted a half hour to eat dinner when you could have been doing something more useful… like writing a blog. Now you have a new set of 24 hours to finish 36 hours worth of work in. Fantastic.The self help books would suggest that you, my friend, need a good dose of time management. Personally, I like the term “time management.” It’s empowering. It is as if you could boss time around: “No, no 4 O’clock. You get back behind 3 O’clock. No cutting.”
But sadly, it’s not like that at all. It’s all about schedules and efficiency. Practical matters to be sure, but not the mastery over the concept of time that so many people desire.
Yet wait! Twice a year, with the help of the federal government (and no help from Arizona), we all collectively will time to go backwards or forwards one hour by the sheer power of… our… minds. Not too shabby, no? Sure, it totally screws up your weekend when you look at a clock you forgot to change or show up early to work when you could have slept in. But it’s still pretty cool that a concept we think of as inherently natural is really just a matter of belief. I might add that it is also just a little bit creepy.
posted by jw
