I am an early riser. AND… I go to bed early too! There, I said it!

The Healthy, Wealthy and Wise part has not come together as yet, but I persevere. On the other hand, I have no significant health issues (touch wood) and I get by pretty okay financially (touch wood again). As for wisdom, do spare my blushes!

All in all, I think the early to bed, early to rise deal is working out famously for me. So why on earth would I want to rock the status quo (do forgive the mixed metaphors!)? Merely because you can’t imagine someone falling asleep at 9 PM and even less, someone up at 4.30 AM? My dear friend, am I to plunge myself in a life of unmitigated horror because you have a limited supply of imagination?

Lose an hour in the morning and you will be all day hunting for it.

~Richard Whately

I agree that my bed-time hours are unusual enough to stick out like a sore thumb. I know that the majority stays up late and rises late. It suits them fine, so who am I to complain? I’m not trying to convert them to my way of thinking, why are they trying to convert me to theirs? Moreover, isn’t it time they realized that they had better give up trying to convert me? Its been decades, aren’t they tired yet? And why not, pray?

For the life of me I can’t regret having missed a call because the call came way past my bed-time. Nor do I regret many of the other activities I miss because I sleep early.

I don’t call people at 5 AM and expect them to answer. Why do they expect me to receive their call at 10.30 PM? If 5 AM is an outlandish hour for them, why can’t 11 PM… or even 10 PM… be equally outlandish for me?

I realize that there might be no more than a scant handful of people like me left in this beautiful world of ours. To be honest, I haven’t met many myself. I’ve met insomniacs, but naturally they don’t qualify.

The thing is, I need my sleep. I can stay up for a couple of nights- as in stay up all night- with no adverse effects. But on the third night I am certain to fall asleep by six in the evening. And sleep until next morning without once waking up. So sleep deprivation isn’t something I’m frightfully good at… not anymore.

I don’t take a nap (power or otherwise) during the day either. Which means, the shut-eye I get during the night is all there is for me. If I fall short there, I’d be absolutely befuddled and unproductive. That would be pretty awful, right? A weird person is bad enough, but a befuddled weirdo? GAD!

It isn’t that I like to sleep early. I don’t particularly. In fact, given a choice I would not sleep at all. In any case, I wouldn’t sleep until all hours. And I would call everybody left, right and center. The thought gives me a strange but deep joy. I’m not asocial as all that it seems. Hmmm….!

Early rising not only gives us more life in the same number of years, but adds, likewise, to their number; and not only enables us to enjoy more of existence in the same time, but increases also the measure.

~ Caleb C. Colton

I like waking up early. Sleeping early is the other end of the stick to waking up early. As we all know, when you pick up one end of the stick you automatically pick up the other. If I could stay up late and yet wake up fresh before dawn, I’d be delighted. But alas, that is not to be. I must sleep early because that’s the only way I can wake up early.

There might have been a time when early risers were as numerous as late risers, but not anymore. Early risers are becoming rare and may shortly go extinct. Another species will disappear from the face of the earth. Which would be rather sad. It is always dismaying to watch the door close on you with finality. But until it actually comes to pass, people like me must carry the torch aloft, all by our ownsome.

To make light of an onerous duty, I think of myself as a rare (and hence precious) species who ought to be specially nurtured and pampered before we are done in entirely. I mean, what would the world be but for people like me? Has anyone bothered to think of that? I bet not! All anybody has thought of is how to turn the world into a photocopy of itself. How mind-numbingly dull!

When one is different from the norm, it upsets those who live bang in the middle of it. I can almost understand (almost, not quite) why the middle-of-the-norm category would try to rescue those on the far reaches of normalcy. It is sweet of them really. I’m sure they think the off normal folks are being chewed to threads by the denizens that flourish on the edges.

They couldn’t be more wrong.

The time just before dawn contains the most energy of all hours of the day. This has helped me become an early riser and an early doer . . . When I wake to see that it’s light out already, I feel the world has started without me.

~ Terri Guillemets

There are no denizens out at the far reaches.

There is just the quiet of the pre-dawn hush when even the birds are asleep. The moon shines bright enough to cast sharp shadows. The breeze- funnily, there’s almost always a happy, playful breeze about at that hour- is deliciously cool. It carries a thousand stories tucked into its folds; stories it wants to whisper breathlessly into your ears.

The earth breathes evenly, gearing herself to witness the miracle of the birth of another day. The silence is deep and soft and benign; urging you to replenish the bonds you have forged with yourself over many lifetimes. You know in your soul that renewing those bonds is all the Health, Wealth and Wisdom you will ever need.

You take deep, grateful breaths of that certainly.

Early To Bed

Early To Bed