I’m an American on 24-hour time. And yes, it’s 24-hour time, not military time. It took a little bit to get used to. But after a few weeks, I grew to love it.

At this point in the story, you’re probably asking yourself, “why the hell are you going by 24-hour time?” 

Great question reader!

It all started after a friend of mine from Germany said, “why do Americans use 12-hour time and not 24-hour time? That’s like counting to 100 by saying 50A and 50B.”

I can’t really explain why that struck a chord with me, but it did. So I started thinking about it some more.

Our modern world has allowed us to connect with and work alongside anyone from anywhere on the planet. Thanks to tools like Twitter, Slack, and Signal, communicating across the planet is wildly seamless and easy. 

If we’re working globally, across a multitude of timezones and geographic regions, why not start using a more global form of time keeping?

After all, almost all countries in the world use 24-hour time (North America and Australia being the biggest defectors, although Australia uses both forms interchangeably).

And as most of you know, I’m big on Bitcoin as a digital currency. So if I believe our modern age should have one digital currency to use across borders, I might as well go with time keeping as well. 

So switching to 24-hour time was not easy. It was pretty annoying at first. Adding and subtracting 12 from the clock whenever I glanced at it was just an additional overload my brain didn’t want to take on. But, like all things you have to do in life if you want to make them happen, I stuck with it. 

Now that I've been using it for 2 months, I love it. It's easy, makes sense, and it makes me feel part of the greater global population. 

Dare I say, using 24-hour time allows one to be more of a global citizen? 

If you’re reading this, I say throw tradition out the window and give 24-hour time a shot.

It’s worth it. 

-AJM

p/alexmedick · @ajmedick

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