3-08: The Longest Day

Why Some Hours Last Longer Than Others

I remember not too long ago when daylight saving time began. The first morning after the clocks sprang forward an hour, I woke up early. That day, I caught the sunrise and the sunset and it felt like an incredibly long and productive day. The only thing that really changed was the clock, and nothing to do with nature. Conversely, today is the summer solstice, the day which receives the longest amount of sunlight of the year. For some reason, I have a feeling that the artificially lengthened day will manage to feel longer than the actual longest day.

I recently had dinner with a very successful entrepreneur and something struck me about what he was, or was not wearing. Notably, he was not wearing a watch. Despite running ten or more businesses, he did not pick up his phone to tend to any notifications once. I thought to myself how he could manage to be on time to anything without a watch, as I looked down at my vintage Casio.

The point that I left that dinner with is that he did not need to constantly check what time it was. I’m sure he was well aware of the time in a relative sense, but it did not demand his attention in the same way that it so often does of mine. A watch can train you to check it more often than you should. Checking the time too often, can have the opposite effect on your experience of it. When you want time to go by faster, checking it constantly simply makes it go by slower. Conversely, when you want it to go by slower, checking it makes it fly by.

Before I begin asking you questions about how you spend your days, I’m going to attempt to analyze how I spend mine. Despite the Apple Watch or Casio on my wrist most days, some of them still manage to slip through my fingers. On occasion, I’ll lay my head down at the end of the night wondering where the day went. A day can disappear without any single hour feeling obviously wasted. It might start with sleeping in, a few emails, a workout, a forgettable meal, some obligatory mindless scrolling, and suddenly you realize the sun is quickly setting. Most of my days are filled with purpose, pursuing passions, and learning new things, but some simply fly by. I wonder if I could benefit from leaving my watches at home sometimes.

What are you planning to do with this extra sunlight the world has given you? Will you blink and let the longest day of the year pass like any other, or will you leave your watch at home as you enjoy every moment of the extra daylight?