After 5 years of solid battle, I woke up this morning and admitted defeat. Yes – I’ve been battling against sleep for all that time. Last night my ‘biology’ directed, against all my will power, that I take to bed around midnight.
I just woke up some 8.5 hours later – this morning – from a state where I had lost conscious awareness of myself or my world. I came straight to this keyboard to admit defeat!
You see I don’t like being directed to spend one-third of my life in this ‘state’. I have so much to do – and I don’t like the loss of time. I’ve been cheating on sleep regularly for the last 5 years and getting on with between 4 and 6 hours per night with the odd catnap during the day. I enjoy being awake and I can’t really enjoy being asleep because I don’t really ‘know’ what goes on during sleep – except the odd dream here or there.
This morning however I rise feeling good for all the sleep last night – better than on mornings where I had cheated. And so I must declare finally that 4.5 billion years of evolution – the carving of this body from the chaos into these temporarily ordered molecules – has finally won. I am at the mercy of the ‘will’ of something far greater than myself.
‘What’s next?’ – I wonder. Well I guess I’ll have to be getting more sleep. I am also directed to use my waking hours more efficiently, to the tune of 2 to 4 hours – that’s the time I would have cheated from sleep. It’s not going to be easy but nature is in charge – and if I don’t find and efficiency saving of 2 to 4 hours in my waking then I’ve been squandering my life. No – I don’t want to do that.
So – to all who actually know me, be very aware that my waking hours from here on a very precious. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing exactly to save 2 – 4 hours during the day. But for starters I have a few ideas – and ‘no’, I don’t do New Year’s resolutions.
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Better advanced planning of my week.
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Improved prioritisation of tasks.
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Avoiding time-wasting things and people.
That’s it! I go off now and do battle with my waking hours instead of my ‘sleeping’ hours.
