wake up earlier

One of my main goals for Lent has been to rise earlier in the day. So far, I have managed to make some progress. I am getting up with an alarm clock and am not beating it into submission which I was once prone to do on a regular basis. Some days are better then others. More often than not I can walk the dog without resorting to sleepwalking.

As for my goal of waking up early and enjoying the morning: At this point I am succeeding with the first part, but haven’t realised the payoff of reaching my goal. I don’t feel like I am getting any real benefit personally from waking up early.

However, I am inspired by this article that I found online. Maybe it will inspire you too. There is hope.

10 benefits of early rising and how to do it

Enjoy… and before you continue on with your day, could you please pass me the coffee?

I have been only partially successful in accomplishing this goal so far. The hardest part is finding a way to balance my need for sleep with my responsibilities as a volunteer firefighter, my family, my dog, and myself (in that order?!).

One of the goals that I have set for myself this year is to wake up earlier. I don’t want to just wake up, stumble from bed to my coffee, to my shower, growl at my family and the dog, and stumble again out the door an hour later; I want to be up, productive, energetic, and happy to be alive at sunup.

The trouble I am having with this goal is my lifestyle. The key to accomplishing this goal, it seems to me is a consistent sleep pattern. Getting a solid block of sleep is not always possible for me, as I am on call all-hours as a volunteer fireman. As a firefighter I am often responsible for getting up at all hours of the night, leaving home, going to the fire station and responding to emergency calls any time the fire radio or pager alerts. Some nights we don’t get any calls, or maybe one or two, and other times we are slammed. Last night for example we had three calls: the first beginning around 10:00 p.m., a second at 11:30 p.m., and a third and longer call at 12:30 a.m., which I did not get home from until after 2:30 a.m. So much for getting up early today… Fortunately it was holiday, but I didn’t get up and do anything productive until almost 11:00 a.m.

My grandfather was up every day at 5:30 a.m. and the tasks he set aside for himself for a day were half accomplished by 11:00 a.m. I am still looking for my second cup of coffee by then.

I can get up for a job and be there at 8:00, 8:30, and 9:00a.m., like everyone else; I am just not myself until almost 10:00 a.m. or 11:00 o’clock in the morning. It would be great if I could figure out a way to exist on cat naps and be able to approximate being human at sunup; if anyone has any advice on how to do this (legally) I would appreciate hearing from you.