Leap Years

Ever noticed our tendency to overlook the commonplace? This occurred to me as I looked at the calendar and realized it’s another leap year! By my fuzzy math, I’ve been through about 12 leap years in my journey, but never really stopped to reflect on why we have 29 days in February every four years.

Most folks understand a trip around the sun takes about 365.25 days. To keep things from getting out of whack with calendars and such, we tack on an extra day to the month of February every four years. Certainly makes sense. But how did all this get started?

As early as Roman times, we humans knew there was a problem but didn’t exactly come up with a fix. Pretty fascinating if you think about it!  By the 16th century, major dates and holidays had drifted significantly! In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII unveiled the “Gregorian” calendar which we use today and introduced the leap year system.

But what does all this mean to the average person? Well, speaking for myself, really not much. I’m glad someone figured it out almost 500 years ago but the inclusion of an extra day on the calendar every four years doesn’t really impact my day to day. I am sure there are considerations for today’s high-tech world. Leap years must play some havoc on our computing and navigation systems!

That being said, there are some things I won’t do on the 29^th of February. I don’t plan on executing any major business dealings on the leap day such as signing a contract. In fact, I’ll probably just lay low and not plan any major travel or activities. Not exactly sure why, call it superstition if you will. Just don’t want any of my life milestones to occur on a day that only shows up once every four years. However, I’ve always thought it must be neat for all the folks born on the 29^th.  Their whole life they’d have a decent conversation starter!

Leap days are necessary to keep our calendars in order, but as for me, I’m not taking any chances and will just let another leap year quietly pass on by. Even though we tend to ignore the commonplace, there’s always the chance for the common to become uncommon in the blink of an eye!

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