A Better Idea For A New World Calendar

By James Donahue

There is a move afoot to trash the 400-year-old Georgian calendar and adopt a proposed perennial World Calendar that gives us some stability in the way we conduct our lives.

This is not a new idea. The concept of a perennial calendar has been kicked around by a group known as the World Calendar Association since about 1930. But it is only recently, as the nations move toward a unified system of doing its business, that it has been gaining support.

If adopted the world calendar would be a 12-month perennial calendar with equal quarters. Each year would begin on a Sunday. Everything would remain the same every year.

The Association hopes to launch this new calendar for the world in 2012.

The old Georgian Calendar, build on a modified version of the 2,000-year-old Julian Calendar, is based on early methods of time keeping and agricultural activities and fails to keep up with modern high-tech times. Proponents of the new World Calendar believe it needs to be replaced with a more efficient and easier to live with method of setting dates and keeping time.

The Georgian Calendar’s strict adherence to solar cycles creates an annual calendar that expires every year. Consequently we must reset our plans each New Year for operating our schools, setting our holidays and running our lives.

The present calendar cannot be evenly divided by half-years or quarters for accurate statistical comparisons. Half-years are only equal on leap-years, and the months are so irregular the year cannot be evenly divided into quarters. The year and months also cannot be divided regularly into weeks. 

The problem with creating a perfect calendar is created by the fact that the true year cycle of the Earth is 365.24 days. This is why we add that extra day in February during leap years, to catch up on that extra time every fourth year.

The World Calendar idea is a simplified version of what we are presently using. It proposes removal of one day so that each year begins on the same day of the week. The day can be made up at the end of the year as a special 23-hour waiting period before resuming the calendar again.

It proposes that this blank day be declared a holiday, possibly called Worlds Day. We also add an extra day on leap-years and make this a holiday as well. The holidays are proposed because these two days would not fit in as a regular day of any week.

Of course, the idea of changing the calendar has generated opposition. Most people resist change and changing old habits about the way we conduct our lives is a major move. Even though we like the idea, we also understand the resistance to change. After all we have been living with that old Georgian calendar many generations and have gotten used to it.

We also believe, because of the world condition, that the concept of a unification of governments and a move to a new and meaningful form of spirituality might make the world a better place.

It soon may be necessary for our very survival.

And the adoption of a new calendar that erases all trace of the old eon should be a part of the picture.