How closely do you guard the start of your day? That alarm clock sits by the bedside or maybe a few feet from the door (if you’re clever) and it calls you to a commitment you made the night before. When the sleep is good, or even more so when the sleep was bad until about 3 AM, this otherwise small battle feels like a D-Day level effort.
This can be the first victory of the day or the first defeat.
You know how these things cascade. You hit snooze one too many times, miss the chance to shower, then scramble to the closet and throw on mismatched socks, and then you’ve missed a chance to have a decent breakfast. Money in the bank account is low, but your credit card can handle a quick Dunkin Donuts combo, right? So you break that promise to yourself too.
It’s funny how much like the Hero’s Journey our daily lives can be. The iconic arc of hero characters begins with The Ordinary—> The Call To Adventure—> Refusal Of The Call. What is the morning routine if not this first sequence of narrative storytelling?
These crossroads moments come to define our lives faster than I’m comfortable admitting. If what Albert Camus said is true, that “Our lives are the sum of our choices,” then putting off that First Defeat seems wise.
I’ll share what I try to guard daily: 6 AM wake up at the latest, one mile walk with the dog, then coffee, then I write something. I try to do all of this before checking email or any social media. I fail a lot, but the days I win….boy do I love it. Those days rock!
“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?”
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
BTW! A new video out now from Geeky Stoics.
