It is that time of year again. The
gyms are full, the nicotine patches are flying off of the shelves, and people
are insisting that this time they “really” mean it. Don’t get me wrong, I am
all for people continually attempting to better themselves. The issue is not
with the idea, it is the lack of commitment. People quickly fall back into
their old routines and content themselves with their lifestyles, but if one
person actually does manage to quit smoking or change their diet, then it was
all worth it in the end. Personally, I have little I wish to resolve this year.
As you can tell by the title, my resolution is more of a maintenance. So why do
I not want more sleep?
Scientists and medical professionals
would recommend an average of seven to nine hours of sleep a day. That’s a lot
of sleep. Roughly a third of your life. Who has that kind of time, and more
importantly who would want to spend so much of their time accomplishing
nothing? With so many things to do in this life, so many things to see, places
to go, skills to learn, activities to partake in, I surely don’t want to waste
any of that time lying down for hours at a time, night after night. Some people
love sleep and spend their evenings looking forward to collapsing into a warm billow
of cotton, letting their thoughts flow uninterrupted, and preparing themselves
for the monotonous grind of tomorrow; a word which is here being used
metaphorically to represent every tomorrow for the rest of one’s life. That is precisely
my problem with sleep.
For the majority of people every day
is the same. You wake, you eat, you work, you play, you sleep, you repeat. That
becomes daunting with an alarming swiftness. How does one fend off burnout in
such conditions? Well, if we knew that, people would probably be better at
sticking to their resolutions. I find sanctity in the sanctuous parts of my
life; a word which here has nothing to do with purity, but simply means the
parts of my life that I find stimulating. People say that working hard is being
productive. I disagree. I have always found work to be a means to support one’s
real life. No one will pay me to do the things I want to do, so I compromise
and give some of my time to society in exchange for the funds to do those
things I find productive. That is not to say that I dislike my work. Regardless
of the job I would certainly not maintain a full-time career were I to be otherwise
perpetually supported financially.
Remember, sleep is a third of your
life. It turns out in the United States, work is about another 23%. There’s
half your life gone. Once you consider the amount of time people spend
commuting, cleaning, and doing errands, what do you have left? I have had days
that slipped right out from under me. By the time I had finished all of those
necessary “living” things, it was time to go to sleep, after all, I needed at
least seven hours of it.
Thus, my resolution. Do I usually get
enough sleep? Not even close. Am I okay with that? Definitely. If a few
exhausted mornings mean that I can keep a day from being wasted on the “productive,”
then so be it. Perhaps I can make up that sleep on a slower day after I
accomplish all of my sanctuous activities.
-AMS
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