Finding it hard to get up in the morning.
My body feels so heavy as I put my feet on the floor and lift myself up from the bed. My whole being hates gravity. For a minute, I think about how hard it is for most people to get up every morning. And how we all have different problems — physical, mental, environmental — yet we share this collective agony.
Video after video, article after article, experts present us with solutions, and tell us about the things we’re constantly doing wrong. “It’s your diet, you need protein, go vegan, have a smoothie.” “You’re overdoing it. You’re not doing enough.” “Too much stress and depression. Not enough sun.” I hear we have a genetic clock that dictates how much sleep our body needs, and that napping is important. I’ve journeyed the internet, trying the truths and lies. I believed the story about the pesticides of modern man, slowly turning us into zombies. Sure, that is affecting us although we can’t blame outside factors for everything.
You won’t believe this, but I am a morning person. Right after I take a refreshing shower, and eat a — most of the time — healthy breakfast, I have energy to do things and develop my best ideas. But the moment my alarm rings, it rings carrying all my responsibilities and all of the people with whom I don’t want to interact that day. I think, could it be easier if I was a cavewoman, in a world where, perhaps, alarms didn’t exist, and people couldn’t text or email stupid questions and snarky replies for which I am obligated to respond? That first waking minute is a loop of my refusal to live in the present and in my body.
This can’t be normal. Except it is. No dietarian solution has helped me more to cope with the process of waking up than reading the meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor and philosopher who lived thousands of years before me. He didn’t have access to genetically modified vegetables or chemicals that cause cancer in the state of California. Yet, he had trouble getting up in the morning just like me. It seemed that most people in his time had the same ailment because he talked about it extensively. But he didn’t just complain; he offered advice:
At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?” — Marcus Aurelius. Meditations: A New Translation.
I surely long for a scientific solution to this infinite plague. Pop a pill and gravity suddenly works in my favor. Then, I wonder if I would be as strong as Marcus Aurelius. There’s a chance that it’s not the shower, the coffee, or the exercising that keeps me going, but the everyday-struggle that lets me know I am alive. I still look for solutions, but I don’t overthink it or put myself down for choosing to be under the blankets one more minute.
