Editor’s note: Is something going on with DST? Suddenly my inbox is packed, lots of requests for interviews, etc.
Oh, yeah!
I’m on the road today, but will be back in Denver tonight and will try to get one of my own blog posts up soon, with highlights of all the action this year.
But for now, here’s another guest post, and a fun one at that. – Scott
by Ron Halvorson
Ron Halvorson
It seemed like summer hadn’t even started when June 21 rolled around and the days began to shorten. By September I got that all-too-familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach: eternal darkness is imminent. All hope is lost.
Oregon’s winter months are tough enough for those of us who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. We don’t need any added aggravation, but that’s what the biannual time change is, an added aggravation – especially in the fall.
True, setting the clock back doesn’t decrease the actual amount of daylight in the day, but when your clock says 4:30 p.m. and it’s already dark, it certainly feels that way. Add to that the emotional and physiological effects just from disrupting your body’s routine; one has to wonder if changing the clock is worth it. I say it’s not.
A few weeks ago, as I pondered my impending fate, I had a brilliant thought: “What’s to keep me from not changing?” Just because everyone else does it doesn’t mean I have to. Imagine how great it would be to cruise through the time change like nothing happened, because for me, it didn’t.
Credit: Photo by Hao Zhang on Unsplash
How would this look? The most obvious challenge is that everyone else would be operating in one time zone while I would be in another. So what? As a retiree I don’t have that many scheduled activities throughout the day. I would just have to make sure
that when there was a meeting time, for example, I changed it to an hour later to fit my personal time zone. If for some reason I muffed it, at least I wouldn’t be late because I’d be an hour early.
Sundays would be great as instead of rising for our “too-early” church meeting at 9:30 a.m., we would go at 10:30. This would be much more reasonable, especially for my night-owl wife, who has agreed to try this tack with only a little reluctance. My challenge
will be to make sure she doesn’t “fall back” anyway, in spite of what the clocks say, just to stay up later!
For the first time in my life I’m excited about the upcoming time change because I will refuse to participate, and I’m eager to see how this is going to work out. I wonder if others are doing this as well.
Maybe this will start a movement. Who’s to keep the populace of an entire state or even nation from doing this if they choose to? Obviously this wouldn’t bring relief to someone with a regular day job who abhorred coming home in the dark. They’d still be at the mercy of their employer’s schedule.
At the very least I’ll get to nurture my rebellious side.