A final thought on daylight savings time: Why the word “saving”?  When we adjust the clocks, we’re not saving daylight or time, we’re just adjusting our lives to better align with it.  We’re waking up and going to bed more in line with the natural rhythm of the day.  So, wouldn’t it be better called daylight alignment time?  Or daylight orientation time?

“Fair enough,” you might say, “but what’s the big deal?  Why does it matter?”  Well, because what we call things often reflects something about us, more than it does about the thing itself.

Man has long desired to be able to get hold of time, to capture it, to store it up, to save it—like quarters in a piggy bank.  We think if we fiddle with the clocks or adjust our sleep schedule, we can keep it from getting away from us.

I wonder if daylight savings time is born of the same sentiment as that expressed by the Roman poet Horace, who wrote “carpe diem,” which literally means “pluck the day”—like fruit or a flower—but is usually translated as “seize the day.”  It is an Epicurean notion—one that rejects eternity and believes that right now is all there is, and that the best we can hope for in life is to enjoy the moment before it passes.

If this world were all there is, I think I’d agree with Horace.  And in principle, we should indeed make the best of every day that we’ve been given.  But it doesn’t change the fact that we cannot “save” even one second of a single day. 

The good news, as C.S. Lewis tells us, is that “the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.”  Every little now has the significance of forever—and so does what we do with it.  If we remember that, we won’t be so concerned with missing the moment.  When we align our lives to eternity, we won’t feel the need to save time or daylight—only to redeem it. 

So, have a wonderful day…and don’t worry about trying to seize it.