This morning my day started at 10 AM. I never thought anything about this time, honestly it was before 12 PM so thought I was doing just fine. Yes my goal is and still continues to be for even earlier more like, 5-7 AM. It’s been a goal of mine for a long time and I always get a little bit closer and then vacation happens or exams, and I get a bit derailed.
No big. Like I said its a goal, it’s a huge work in progress for me. But eventually I’ll get there. Just a matter of time.
But when did such an arbitrary thing like a time like 10AM become such a daunting negative thing?
Looking at it from an analytic standpoint, 24 hours in a day, starting your day at 10 AM only give you 14 hours to do everything else. A job, let’s say a single 9-5 plus commute takes up another 9 hours (assuming the commute round trip is an hour), which leaves you with 5 hours. Then add in time to eat. We’re humans not vacuums so we also need at least an hour to an hour an 1/2 for all three meals. This leaves us with 3.5 hours to accomplish everything else that wasn’t already done with the other above tasks.
So from this standpoint, yes, it may seem 10 AM is late and setting us for failure for all other tasks outside of required work and nutrition. But what about all the entrepreneurs and the nurses and teachers and other professions? The ones whose careers don’t surround their schedule around that 9-5 timeline but rather more or less in various chunks of those 24 hours? Their prime working hours may very well be the prime sleeping hours of others.
So in their line of working, that set time is actual very appropriate. For those starting their prime sleep hours between the hours of 2 AM and 10 AM are prioritizing their health and quality of sleep as opposed to what society has set to be.
Now I started this off with being lazy. Why? Because the sheer word of it has a negative connotation. And besides that it, is linked to a long line of assumptions and judgements. When you think of someone who is a lazy individual do you think they perform efficiently at work? Or that they make it to all of their children’s performance? Or that they aren’t an attentive and supportive boyfriend? Maybe not you but a lot of people believe the latter. That a single adjective can set a direction of thought and perspective on a single individual. And from what exactly? The idea that this individual is seemed these things because he sleeps in from time to time?
This topic first started when the pandemic first began in March, or at least when society and the new deemed it “ serious.” And at the time, it sparked many conversations regarding personal bias and development of self. While this happened, I was called lazy by some random nobody due to the time I would wake up in the morning. I can’t tell you why it bothered me so much. Maybe it was due to the fact that he didn’t really know me or my life. Or the fact that I was learning and obtaining so much information on improvement and perspectives that I felt defensive over the word. Because to some people, being lazy is a very small characteristic of their personality. While for someone who already has other factors being pinned against them, such as a black or Hispanic women, being deemed lazy is only the tip of the ice berg. In the eyes of others in society, lazy becomes this deafening sound or scarlet letter.
I think the reason it truly hit a nerve was becases the word itself represents an incredibly inaccurate depiction of me and sadly THAT is what society would focus on. Not my hard work and resilience in school or the kindness I share towards complete strangers. All someone would remember is the negative mark on my peronsality report that says im a lazy individual.
And that would be that.
Let’s talk 