Turn Back Time?


 Did you remember to set your clocks back?  Did you have to?  With so much automation in our lives, for the most part, we don't have to go around setting the clocks; they do it automatically.  Of course there is still the dreaded car clock that requires a PhD in engineering to figure out.  Seriously with all the advances in technology when it comes to cars, why can't we get one with a clock that sets itself?  I mean there are cars that park themselves.  Cars that drive themselves.  Why can't we get one with a clock that we don't have to fight with?  (Now is the time to tell me that I am out of touch and that there IS one, but I don't know about it!)

There is an ongoing debate as to whether we should continue this clock changing twice a year.  I'm not sure where I stand on that.  I'm all about more daylight; especially in the morning when I walking.  I'm not about the darkness falling at 4 PM.  I'm a sunshine girl.  However, for now I go with the flow and adjust the clocks as necessary.

That said, I'm a bit unhappy that we, as a nation, seem to really be turning back time.  Too often I'm perceiving that we are turning back not the clocks, but the calendar.  Don't joke about the "good old days of segregation" because I don't find it funny.  

As a matter of fact, I don't think that the good old days were necessarily all that good.  They weren't good for minorities and that includes women.  When my grandmother was 18, she wouldn't have had the right to vote.  When my mother was 18 she could have been fired from a job because she was pregnant.  When I was 18, I would not necessarily  had access to paid maternity leave. Are these what I should consider the good old days?

We still have long way to go.  Equal rights for ALL is still just a concept, and not a reality.  That's not to say that we haven't moved forward.  We HAVE.  After all slavery has been outlawed in our nation for 155 years now.  (Let's not get into how long it WAS legal in this country OR the fact that even though it is illegal in the US that this abhorrent practice continued after it was outlawed and DOES continue in places and spaces that we don't want to address.)  Let's continue to move forward.  Let's not work to deny the rights of all people, but instead of create ways that are inclusive.  Denying someone their rights does not give us more or better us in any way.  

Perhaps Billy Joel said it best: "Cause the good ole days weren't always good. And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems."

We shouldn't try to set the clocks back to the "good old days," but we can make tomorrow better. (Daylight Savings Time or not.)

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