By Ken Markley

About 22 years ago, my wife Susan and I started a business selling antique clocks. This has led us to focus a lot on the passage of time and the issues of timekeeping in general. There are some really interesting aspects to the subject of time, including the fact that although people all over the world are living their lives at exactly the same instant, we are all actually living at times of day, and in some cases, on different days of the week and with different dates.

For example, when we here at Messiah Village in Mechanicsburg, Pa., are having breakfast on at 8 a.m. on a Friday morning, its already 10 a.m. in Argentina and midnight on Saturday in Australia. At 8 a.m. on a Friday in Mechanicsburg, it’s 4 p.m. Friday in Russia and 2 a.m. on Saturday in Fiji.

All those differences in time and date-keeping could—and often does—cause lots of confusion. But there’s one moment every year when all the world thinks together about a particular time, and that’s at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Even though midnight arrives at different moments depending on the location around the world, nearly everyone begins to anticipate that almost magical change from the old to the new year.

I suppose it’s the only thing that all the people of the world agree upon, and that’s their hope for a better world in the coming year. Almost universally, people of every nation and culture celebrate New Year’s Eve. The interesting thing about it is that our parties, toasts and resolutions—although happening over a period of many different midnight moments—all seem to extend optimism for the next 365 days. Isn’t it a nice thought that the whole world (or most of it) can at least join together with one desire? Peace on Earth.

Ken and Susan Markley are the proprietors of Old Timers Clocks You can view their current inventory on their Web site.

———————————

WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 29th, 2010 at 1:00 am and is filed under Blog Entry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

View all articles by WorthPoint Staff.

Want a picture icon with your comment? Sign up with Gravatar to get one, or connect with your Facebook or Twitter account.