We are told that a day is 24 hours. People—in order to “make the most of their time”—plan their days and schedule various things according to measurements and calculations of minutes and hours: a walk between two places is so many minutes long; an hour’s break between obligations will allow for roughly thirty minutes to eat lunch after travel time is taken into account; when working late into the evening, the hours previously allotted for sleep are cut into, etc. Because “there aren’t enough hours in the day,” what cannot be fit into one’s schedule today or this week is slotted into an available hour belonging to tomorrow or next week. One 24-hour period appears the same as any other, and any rare exception to this general principle is itself noted and planned for in advance (e.g., holidays, if treated as such and duly celebrated, are planned and accounted for in the schedule ahead-of-time). The day thus represented makes days by and large interchangeable and planning practices reflect this.
Viewed as such, it is common that the day’s hours are carefully organized and used most efficiently in order to extract from each day the most productivity possible. Back roads and alternate routes are thus seen as viable not because they are more leisurely and manifest the beauty belonging to each season, but because they might be more time-efficient than sitting in traffic. A walk or drive is so many minutes long and thus requires our departure be no later than a certain time in order to arrive on-time at our destination, which in turn gives us so much time to do this or that until the clock once more demands our departure. Approaching deadlines and a dwindling number of hours with which to work demand that one’s rationed hours of sleep be temporarily cut-back, perhaps with the intention of “borrowing” hours from a later day such that the hours of sleep now sacrificed might be “made up” later. Unplanned events and possibilities that arise or occur to us spontaneously show up as that for which we have no time, given that our day has already been allotted.
What then is lost when we treat a day as a mere 24 hours? On our walk or drive whose duration we’ve measured and memorized, the flora in bloom are banished to obscurity. Our many commitments and appointments which we have scheduled in advance and with which our days are filled rule out or even conceal altogether the fittingness of a particular day for foraging for wild mushrooms, or a particular evening for watching a thunderstorm from the porch. Due to prior scheduling, the solicitations of the first warm, sunny day after a long, harsh winter fall on deaf ears. The rationing of sleep and setting of alarms instrumentalizes sleep for productivity and so bears it as a (barely) necessary evil. To see sleep in such a way is to overlook other, much richer aspects of sleep: its bringing to a close one day and delivering us over to the next as fresh and distinct from the previous, with all of the potential and promise that brand new days bring; its restoration of our mind, body, and spirit that prepares us for the new day’s summons; its offering of a glimpse into our deepest existential questions, concerns, and aspirations through the lens of dreams. The same can be said for the day itself: to see a day as a mere 24 hours is to overlook each day’s richer dimensions and possibilities.
But what more is a day than 24 hours? It is said that the dawn of a new day is a fresh start—and indeed it is. But is this new start on a blank canvas? Not hardly.
Different days have different demands, different callings, and different affordances. The different demands, callings, and affordances that belong to each day are precisely what the 24-hour conception of a day overlooks. The first warm, sunny day after a long, harsh winter not only affords us the opportunity to return to outdoor recreation, but indeed inspires and calls us to do so with an extraordinary insistence. The morning that is permeated with the sounds of heavy rain and thunder solicits us to spend a bit more time with our morning coffee and thoughts. The summer evening with a cool breeze, clear skies, and a scantly lit moon beckons us to go outside and look up toward the Heavens in awe—an ancient awe that is ever and always renewed. The day that follows a great tragedy or defeat affords us an occasion to reflect and the opportunity to re-collect and re-orient ourselves. The day after a great triumph or blessing affords us a most felicitous occasion in which to rejoice and to feel grateful.
It is abundantly clear that a day is most dearly embraced in terms of its particular character—a character seldom seen in advance and which is most difficult (indeed, more often than not impossible) to schedule in advance.
But schedule we must: deadlines loom, the kids’ piano lessons are on set days of the week, and we are expected to be at work on time rain or shine, tragedy or triumph. Without scheduling, much of life would not be possible. But a schedule is not a gift to be cherished the way a day—and a lifetime—is. A gift is something to be cherished and not to be squandered. If on the first warm, sunny day of spring we get the call to go outside and play catch with a son who has patiently awaited this day all winter long—and we promptly hang up upon receiving that call—the gift of that day is lost. There may be more days to follow that will be suitable for playing catch, but few of them will have the extraordinary level of excitement that is intrinsic to the first break in the weather. Catch can be re-scheduled, but the excitement and relief of that first warm, sunny day cannot.
The more we default to what is scheduled in advance, the more we will miss our daily miracles. The days—and the peculiar character that distinguishes each day—pass us by; over time, with the accumulated passing of many days on end, it is in turn life that passes us by. Moments are lost, memories are foreclosed upon and there is no making good on them.
And so what we schedule in advance must remain tentative as much as possible, lest we miss and so fail to live up to the gift that is each day, the gift that is a lifetime.