"All poets and heroes, like Memnon, are the children of Aurora, and emit their music at sunrise. To him whose elastic and vigourous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning." Henry David Thoreau
I am no shining crown of practical virtue. In this my twenty-fifth year I am still struggling to eat fruits and vegetables every day, to exercise five to seven times a week, to plan out my week ahead of time and actually stick to the plan. Sometimes I still write reminders on my hand.
Especially sticky, a thorn in my side, has been the simple habit of going to bed at a reasonable time. Insomnia and late-night life has kept my bedtime somewhere between late, very late and extremely late.
I am amazed at the number of practical and spiritual consequences to not rising with the sun. Staying up, I have spent countless hours on internet browsing and Facebook checking. Sleeping in, I have been late to important meetings. I have forgone prayer and exercise for the sake of a rushed bowl of cereal and breathless Patre Nostrum. I have
avoided or ignored pressing commitments until the last minute. This has not been working.
Then it struck me! It all comes back to not getting up early, which all comes back to not going to bed early. Do I deserve an award for Noticing the Obvious? I did not realize that Benjamin Franklin meant it. To hear the true meaning of a platitude or truism, reverse it: "Late to bed and late to rise makes a man unhealthy, stupid and poor." That's three for three!
Perhaps there is no such thing as a "night person."
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