Timekeepers Just Extended 2016 Because, Yeah, Sometimes Life Moves a Little Too Fast

Anyone over the age of 25 can agree on this: The days are long and the years are short. Time passes in increasingly fleeting moments. Like sand slipping through fingers and such. Seemingly we are bound by this law, the immutable paradox of time and age.

But a brave group of freedom fighters, who the Associated Press refers to vaguely as the International Timekeepers, have decided to put down their stopwatches and say “enough is enough.” In what is surely a brazen attempt at holding onto their collective youth, the Timekeepers have officially tacked another, um, one second onto the end of 2016.

So yeah, on Dec. 31 at 11:59:59 Universal Time (6:59 p.m. Eastern Time), the world, which this year is spinning so slowly that it warrants this extra second, will pause and tell 2017 to hold its horses for just one minute — er, second —please.

While the international community is divided on the leap second, this is a victory, however brief and symbolic, to be celebrated. We have beaten back the hastening passage of time. These horological masters have reached into their complications, twisted some dials and given us another beautiful, nearly imperceptible fleeting moment. Thank the stars.