I think it was Benjamin Franklin who wrote the aphorism "early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise" in his "Poor Richard's Almanac". Well, I've have been struggling with wrapping my head around that bit of wisdom for the last six months or so. Fiancee S. works teacher's hours, and that means being in her classroom by 7:15. That means her alarm goes off at 5:30 or "zero dark thirty" as she calls it. I've tried sleeping through it and sleeping after it. Try as I might, I think the best solution for everyone involved is just to be an adult and go to bed earlier. If you do the math, eights hours of sleep with a 5:30am wake up call means going to bed at 9:30pm. I haven't done that regularly since grammar school. Why didn't anyone remind me as a kid that being a grownup involved going to be early?
Of course, my Dad would be chuckling if heard me saying this. He ALWAYS went to bed just after 9pm before he retired. He liked getting up just after 5am and being at his desk by about 7am. He used to call the early morning the most productive part of the day. The fact that both my sister and I now keep similar hours must provide some sense of satisfaction. Of course, my sister is struggling for any sleep at the moment -- nephew J. is proving to be a colicky baby in his first few weeks.
No, I've had the luxury of setting a schedule that often allowed me to sleep late during my adult life. One of the few perks of being a graduate student throughout my 20's. Even when I started work after graduate school, Company O. takes a very professional attitude with regard to employee hours; Company O. doesn't care exactly when you show up to work as long as you continue to produce results and don't miss meetings. This allowed me to avoid realities like 5:30am alarms for a long time.
I remember that Fiancee S. used to tease me about "working farmer's hours" if I ever mentioned getting up before 7am. I think I'm having the last chuckle about this though -- I'm ususally the first one out of bed now that we both respond to the 5:30am alarm.
said drgeek
on 2004-03-03 at 11:58 a.m.
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