E. Lexi Abbott

This time of year is always an interesting one. It’s a feeling of suspension, of being in a time and space that is parallel to that of the “normal” world we exist in during everyday life. We joke about how all semblance of the calendar week is lost and we don’t know what day it is, or even care to know. We joke about how this is the time to stuff our face full of holiday sweets and forget any and all other rules we live by. This is a time spent surrounded by family, blood or chosen.

But this isn’t the only span of time throughout the year that we happily forget what day it is on purpose. Isn’t that the whole point of going on vacation?

“I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand
Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand
Life is good today
Life is good today” – Zac Brown Band “Toes”

We strive for times when we can forget to keep time. But, something about humans is their psychological dependence on feeling like they are in control.

So, they created the concept of keeping time. They broke down every moment into measurable amounts of months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. They labeled every day of the week with a different name so they could tell them apart. They put numbers on each day and names on each group of 28-31 days. As a species, we did our best to set up a system so we would never lose our concept of control.

As society developed and grew, we relied more and more heavily on this concept of time we had created until we reached the modern day with concepts such as the stock market and business that rely on things running smoothly 24-hours a day…AKA all the time.

The world is seemingly spinning faster and faster, while also very literally spinning faster and faster to the point of scientists having to add seconds every couple years to a random day just to say we are staying within a 24-hour day cycle (source).

So, when you’re enjoying this next week forgetting what day it is and hanging out with your loved ones before we decide as a society to go back to our normal feeling of being in control by constantly measuring time…just remember to enjoy it. It is one of the only times of the year that we allow ourselves to be still.