Monday, October 9, 2017

朝寝坊 (Later Riser)

I have trouble oversleeping. If I didn't have a 9-to-5 job, I would oversleep much more often. It starts gradually: I go to bed at midnight one night, everything's fine the next day and I have no problems, the next evening I bargain myself and try to "cheat time" by going bed at 12:30AM, half an hour later, thus causing myself to wake up just a tad later the next day, and then go on the next day......1AM, 2AM, suddenly I'm waking up at noon.

What's with the late-rising problems? It stems from one main cause: I wish there were more hours in the day. 24 per day just isn't enough to get 8 hours of sleep in (don't feel fulfilled without it), 3 meals in, brush teeth twice, get a workout in, cook food (if you're a gourmet person), commute to work, etc., and get 8 hours of work in. It's like one's budget, except not for money, but for time: There's so many fixed costs like mortgage/rent, car payments, health insurance, living expenses, taxes, etc., that there's only so much discretionary cash left. Same thing with time. After everything is finally taken care of, I feel like there's only so much time left to have MY TIME before going to sleep at a decent time.

So what gets sacrificed? Sleep, or at least an early bedtime. Basically I wish the day was 27 hours instead of 24 hours.

During college and some fun unemployment times/ summers between colleges, there were large stretches where I would just wake up at 11AM (or later!) and go to bed at 3AM or 4AM. Not a very healthy lifestyle, and didn't see daytime too much, and especially bad when I was living with my parents because they would lecture me for my bad habits. A little part of me remembers when I had a remote job (where I can work anywhere in the world! Wow what a life!) as long as I had a computer, and I just sat in my room all day (mostly, all night), go to bed at 5AM AS THE SUN WAS RISING, wake up AFTERNOON around 1PM, have "breakfast," work a few hours, go on a run as the SUN WAS SETTING (4:30PM in the winters here in LA), have LUNCH when I got back home, work a while, HAVE DINNER at like 11:30PM, then work until 5AM in the morning and start the cycle over again......and also slipping a little later each day as previously mentioned. The days would just go by as I had no set schedule, no responsibility to be anywhere at any given time. Days would seem to lap into other days. I had no social life, I lived like a hermit, and a little part of me loved it. And I reminisce back to those days sometimes of a night owl (especially when I oversleep and wake up at 11AM like I did today). (It was less than 4 years ago! WHAT WAS I DOING BACK THEN!)  I would not recommend it, its not good for your health.....but most people that I know have had that period in their lives. I'm just glad I've put that period behind me (for the most part, once in a while on a lazy weekend it'll rear its head again).


Luckily, nowadays even if I'm not working (weekends!) I have a lovely person to wake up to and not oversleep so I can spend more time with her! Incentive to wake up!


Fantasize on,

Robert Yan

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