Do we fall off into the tick-tock world and sleep less become more bitchy? What started off as a joke to a colleague actually now rings a bit of truth to it. The co-worker of mine understands how sporadic my work life is, I am guessing her own is just as batty. I wonder though if we ever realize how much life changes when we grow up?
My mother used to be amazed, shocked & concerned with my sleeping habits. I always told her that if I could get paid to sleep I would become a millionaire overnight. Once I remember a very nasty winter we had in the mountainous country home of West Virginia.
I managed to get tonsillitis, strep throat and bronchitis as the same time. Talent right? The doctors prescribed me a ton of things after a fun trip to the hospital but all my body wanted to do was rest & recover. I ended up sleeping 26hrs straight; without waking for food, medicine or water. I am guessing that a bomb could have gone off and I would not have even blinked an eyelash.
This of course was me at my worse, as a teen feeling almost deathly sick. If I had all the time in the world I am sure that I could easily sleep 10hrs a night. This though is no longer an option. I had to grow up, get a hair cut & get a real job.
So what really happens when we grow up? Its pretty simple: sleep less, become more bitchy. There are bills to pay, schedules to keep and many times over – very late nights working to close out deadlines. I joke that there should be an extra 24hrs in the day but we all know that is not possible. Stuart Wilde talks about the tick-tock world in his book Infinite Self and I adore it, that being my favorite so far from my Wilde collection (which is growing, slow but sure).
We require our children to endure the tick-tock influence of the education system—a system whose only reality is based in ego, personality, status, and logic.
How do we take care of the things we need in a day’s time without falling into the trap of the tick-tock mindset? Right now I have noticed that many people including myself never get the “proper sleep” that so many of our doctors & nurses tell about. Then again these same doctors & nurses are herding us into clinics still calling them offices too, so who is to say we need to follow all of their suggestions? I can still sleep less become more bitchy and get the tasks I need to complete done. When we have deadlines and we grow up, we still need to meet them. People depend on me for a number of reasons and besides my own personal interest of not wanting to let anyone down, I have stuff that needs done, so I do it.
Right now I am up at 6am and on the exercise machine, I have noticed by not working out in the evenings or even mid day if the day allows for it, in the morning once I get going I am fine. I have still cut off caffeine (mostly) from my life and that has been a huge improvement. I am on the machine, checking my email and getting a head start on the day before the day actually begins. Listening to a morning radio station while I am doing this for 30 minutes & I am good to go. There is no point in saying that sometimes I do not watch something on TV in the evening and take a cat nap, but hey, that’s life and it’s during my downtime. The only issue that happens is sometimes when you do sleep less, you become more bitch and personally I am okay with that.
Anyone that knows me knows I wake up like an angry bear no matter if it’s a work day or a weekend. I am the true epitome of the geek that hides out in a dark basement from the evil sun and hates morning hours. I am a night-hawk by nature and at this point I would even consider myself an Owl in a human body but still, things have to get done. That means I need to trick my body and my mindset into doing what it needs to get things done. It isn’t always fun and it isn’t always pretty but it works.
I am not saying that I completely run from the tick-tock world, but I do live in it, I just do not let it consume my entire life. There is more to me than sleep less become more bitchy but that is something I can save for another day. I can walk between the tick-tock & the unknown. I am completely content with this.
It’s just being courageous enough to step away from the handrail of life, which delineates the mind-set of tick-tock, and walk a little way into the unknown.
