Sunday March 8 at 2am marks the beginning of Daylight Savings Time. I don’t know the complete history of Daylight Savings, but I believe it began in the late 1800s as a measure to protect early rising farmers from vampire attacks as they transported their goods to the markets in the wee hours of the morning. After adopting Daylight Savings the number of reported vampire attacks on farmers dropped to zero. No data exists on the number of attacks in the years prior to Daylight Savings, but I’m guessing there were at least six.

Sure the extra daylight is great, but are we doing enough? Daylight is an important natural resource, and even though the observance of Daylight Savings Time will lead to more daylight being saved, I think we can do better as a nation. So I’ve compiled a short list of how you can save even more daylight.

Close your eyes - Every day, your retinas absorb countless innocent rays of daylight, even when you aren’t looking at anything important. Think of how many rays you wasted as you watched yet another breaking news report on (shakes Magic Eight Ball) Angelina Jolie’s touching words of support for (shakes Magic Eight Ball) Jessica Simpson’s mom jeans? What if those rays were heading towards a doctor on a dimly lit road performing an emergency roadside tracheotomy? What if he was tending to someone you cared about?

So to prevent the wasting of daylight rays, I recommend keeping your eyes closed as much as possible. Open them only for important activities like flying airplanes and watching the latest episode of 24. When performing lesser activities that require sight (driving, operating heavy machinery), blink a lot. Every little bit of daylight helps.

Invest - Sure, saving daylight is great, but have you considered investing? Studies have shown that daylight that has been rolled over into a 401k or Roth IRA will provide more daylight for your investment over a thirty year period than you would receive in a standard daylight savings account. Judging by all the doom and gloom predictions people love to make about the future, you’re literally going to want to save that daylight for a rainy day.

I recommend talking to an investment specialist today about the options available for opening a new daylight investment account. After the first one hangs up on you, call another. Then another. Repeat the process until you find one unscrupulous enough to charge you for his services.

Take up a collection - Whether it’s whales, seals, or the earth, saving anything costs money. Daylight is no different. People have been taking their daylight saving for granted for too many years so it will require a lot of money if anyone is going to take this initiative seriously.

How can you help? There are many different ways you can raise money to help promote the cause of saving daylight. Organizing bake sales, selling raffle tickets, or washing cars are three easy projects you can organize in your community. I personally placed collection jars in numerous local convenience stores with little signs that read “Save the Daylight“ under a picture of the sun. Each week I collect the money in the jars and take it to an open field where I grab handful after handful, throwing it towards the sun. I tell the sun to keep what it needs, and everything that falls back to earth is mine to keep. I consider it another gift from the sun, just like sunlight.

With these tips, hopefully you too will be able to save more daylight this year than ever before. If you value daylight and think it is worthy of saving, please do what you can. Even a small change is a noble change.

Which reminds me, it’s time to switch the jars again. Saving daylight is hard work.

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