This is the weekend when we turn our clocks back one hour. I always find this whole custom amusing, because it points out how artificial and arbitrary the human construction of time is. Think about it:
Q: What time is it?
A: It is 1:59 AM and 50 seconds . . .
(long pause)
Q: What time is it now?
A: It is 1 AM.
Q: But that's not possible. You just said . . .
A: It is 1 AM and 10 seconds.
Q: How . . . ?
A: Because I said it is.
And, when you sit down and think about it, it's not just the time-- it's everything. The months of the year, for example-- the tenth month of the year is called OCTOber?! That's when you realize that the name and the position in the sequence are completely irrelevant! The month it was "created" and named in honor of an ancient Roman emporer. And the days of the week? Norse Gods. Norse Gods!? Go on, pull the other one while you're down there.
Time, in the sense that we as human beings know and understand it, is an artificial construct. It is arbitrary and a matter of convenience, so we can all agree to meet for lunch at some point in the future and have a halfway decent of arriving at the restaurant at the same time.
(There is, I should mention, another sense of the passage of time-- the Earth doesn't care about days of the week, or months of the year. It's all cycles and processes. Cycles within cycles, actually.)
But, I digress . . . the topic of this post is about opportunity. Specifically, what can you do with the "extra" (snort!) hour this weekend?! I'm planning on using it to jump start my new fitness regimen for the winter months.
I need to get in the habit of doing at least 20 minutes of cardio each day, preferably before breakfast. Of course, that means getting up earlier than I already do-- a thought that immediately puts a damper on any enthusiasm I might have for the task.
However, if I set my alarm clock to go off 30 minutes early when I go to bed tonight-- after I've already turned it back an hour, that is-- I'm actually getting up 30 minutes later than I would have been when I really started! And there wasn't even any time travel or British accents involved! :)
Then I leave the clock set for 30 minutes ahead of my customary time from here on in, and let the habit entrench itself for the next month.