We Fall Back One Hour This Weekend, But Why…Seriously Why?

That's the question many of us ask ourselves every year when we have to do this. I hate it. Always did and always will. The fact that we have to even mess with the clocks twice a year is one of the dumbest things in the world, in my humble opinion.

I guess we can just blame Benjamin Franklin, the man who started this daylight-saving madness as a joke. A bad joke that's managed to continue every year since that said bad joke occurred in the late 1700s.

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Benjamin Franklin’s “An Economical Project,” written in 1784, is the earliest known proposal to “save” daylight. It was even sarcastic in tone trying to get people to rise at the crack of dawn to save the expense of candlelight. CANDLELIGHT!

When's the last time we had to worry about the expense of candlelight? And when it comes to electricity, how does this save on electricity? It gets dark at 4:30! Here's what Ben Franklin's proposal looked like:

“Every morning, as soon as the Sun rises, let all the bells in every church be set ringing: and if that is not sufficient, let cannon be fired in every street to wake the sluggards effectually...Oblige a man to rise at four in the morning, and it is probable that he will go willingly to bed at eight in the evening.”

 

Tell me it's not silly we still do this back and forth thing with the clocks. Okay sure, you get that extra hour of sleep, but other than that, the end of daylight saving time means we have darkness before 5 p.m., which hits for the next several months, and that is ridiculous.

Can we please just keep the clocks the same year-round as Arizona and Hawaii do? Because the 5 p.m. or sometimes earlier sunsets suck! Another thing, why do Arizona and Hawaii get off the hook for this madness?  

So, to the powers that be, I beg you, stop the madness. Nobody likes darkness creeping into their lives at 4 p.m. when it's freezing cold outside and most of us would like to enjoy at least a little daylight in our homes after work and not have it feel like it's time for bed at six.

Thank you.