It’s Monday morning. 4:30am. My alarm hums on my phone. I don’t want to get up.
I have this thought most days during the week when my alarm goes off. I’m tired. I want to go back to sleep.
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Marcus Aurelius, in his Meditations, sums it up nicely
At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”
Some days I also just want to pull that blanket over my head. Whilst I am not an Emperor, not do I have an empire to run, I do have my own tasks to complete for the day. The essentials that bring me towards the person I want to be. That person:
- Has a cold shower to bring discomfort (and experience a nice adrenaline rush at the end)
- Stretches
- Goes to the gym and lifts heavy things to get stronger
- Spends time reflecting by writing down thoughts, ideas, lessons, preparing articles
- Reads and learns
To do that I need to get up early so that I can accomplish these things before the demands of the day start to creep their way in. I have a day job. I don’t want to do these things after work. So it leaves the mornings for this to happen. Not that it makes getting out of bed any easier. A lot of the time the outcome of our day can be mostly out of our control. A deadline moves forward. An emergency happens. The bus doesn’t come. Your energy throughout the day depletes and sometimes you just want to sit on the couch. If you have already done what’s important in the morning, then you don’t have to try and muster the will power to go and do these things.
Whilst systems are a great way to help us get things done, they are always easier in the morning when we have more energy.
These tasks I mentioned above are part of the person I want to be. Someone that does hard things. That is strong and healthy. That helps others. That is a great husband and friend.
There is also a level of responsibility that is associated with it. By being the best person of myself, I can then be a great husband. I can contribute well to my family. I can assist and help my smaller community, then the broader community.
Later in his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius reflects on this.
When you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, remember that your defining characteristic— what defines a human being — is to work with others. Even animals know how to sleep. And it’s the characteristic activity that’s the more natural one — more innate and more satisfying.
Early mornings also make my day easier. On days that I’ve worked out I have greater focus and clarity of thought. I’m more relaxed. It’s easier (although it’s certainly not an ingrained habit) to insert a pause during interactions and examine my impressions.
In his Discourse on progress, Epictetus reminds us that from the moment we get up in the morning we should adhere to our ideals, eating and bathing like a person of integrity, putting our principles into practice in every situation we face – the way a runner does when he applies the principles of running, or a singer those of musicianship.
Sleep is important for our recovery. By waking up early, it does mean that we have to get to bed earlier where our circumstances allow us to. This can be tricky because we have our own things that we want to do at night. We have catchups with friends, hobbies to pursue, family to see. We also may have evening routines which help us wind down at night and get us ready to get a good night of rest.
Whilst we want to wake up early, we should not sacrifice sleep in order to do so. If something unexpected happens at night, we should where possible try and get our seven to eight hours of sleep, even if that means we wake up a bit later. One of the keys to waking up early is to have a good night routine and rhythm in place.
The biggest thing we can do is to examine our impressions when that alarm goes off. To make sure that we don’t assign the wrong impression. ‘I’m tired, this is hard, I want more sleep.’ These are impressions that ultimately will make it hard for us to get out of bed. ‘I get to strengthen my body. I get to improve myself. Or, I get to challenge myself. I get to life our my purpose,’ are must better impressions to make when that alarm wakes us up and demands we get out of our cosy bed.
So yes, we might have to get up earlier that we would like to. That is the way things are. We can make good use of impressions to get our sleep, get up early, and build the character we want.