The Great Smoky Mountain Journal
Source:
Tuesday, January 01, 2019 02:39 PM
OPED: Mike Levin: I'm Not Going To Spring Forward And You Can't Make Me
That’s because we are the ones who somehow didn’t get the memo about the time change. We were so retro as to rely on our old school alarm clocks instead of our smart phones to tell us what time it is.
But this year, I’m not going to spring forward. You can’t make me. I’m going to be my own time zone … and you can join me.
Daylight saving time might have made sense a century ago, when the nation was on a war footing. Back then, somebody in the government thought it would be an awfully good idea to give everybody jet leg … even though jets had not even been invented yet.
Farmers especially hate daylight saving time, because if you think jetlagged people are trouble, try milking a jetlagged cow.
Where is the president’s Twitter feed when I need it? Can we start a campaign? #StayPut. #SleepIn. #SpringNowhere.
In fact, America reels from industrial accidents, messed up train and plane schedules, and a whole host of other complications resulting from our twice-annual time changes.
Today a big reason we have daylight saving time – and one reason it lasts so long during the year – is because the barbecue industry and the golf industry lobbied Congress to keep the silly thing alive. That’s not a joke – it just sounds like one. When the sun sets later, people have more time and spend more money to barbecue and golf.
This year, however, I’m opting out. I’ve had enough. Who says I have to change my clock just because everybody else does? Isn’t this still supposed to be a free country?
Where is the president’s Twitter feed when I need it? Can we start a campaign? #StayPut. #SleepIn. #SpringNowhere.
If you want to be one of those bright eyed, bushy-tailed, and yet sleep-deprived conformists, that’s your business. I, by contrast, am an independent thinker. Why would I want to miss out on an extra hour of dreams?
Starting this year, if you want to get on my Google Calendar, you’ll have to set yours to Michael Standard Time.
There are other benefits as well.
By not springing forward, if I’m an hour late for anything I can always just blame the fact that everybody else sprang forward without me, and say their choice is something out of my control.
Even better, I will no longer be kept waiting by my wife when she is dressing for date night, because now I will be 20 minutes later than she is.
Now I have to hope she doesn’t read this article.
It really does seem strange, all kidding aside, that our nation still rouses itself an hour early and gives ourselves an extra hour of sleep on specific Sunday mornings, year after year after year, regardless of the fact that there is absolutely no benefit at all to doing so (and plenty of cost).
Daylight saving time is an anachronism, something that serves no particular value today, much like UHF antennas, cassette tape answering machines, or typewriters.
Let’s make this bad idea part of our history and stop springing forward, falling back and traveling through time for no good reason. There’s no sense getting jet lagged without boarding a jet.
New York Times best-selling author and Shark Tank entrepreneur Michael Levin runs BusinessGhost.com, a national book ghostwriting firm.