If you’re anything like me, waking up in the morning is such an impossible feat that it’s borderline embarrassing. It takes an infinite amount of willpower and determination for me to simply get out of bed, especially when I have a stressful day ahead of me. Every morning, I set my alarm for two hours before I have to actually wake up so I can go back to sleep, and I set timers for every 30 minutes to make sure that I’m actually, undoubtedly ready to wake up. I just love the feeling of going back to sleep, especially when it’s cold and dark outside.
When I wake up, I find any excuse to stay in bed for a little bit longer. My thought process is typically that if I sleep for another five minutes, it probably won’t make me late for class. I also find myself wishing that I could trade places with my dog. My dog sleeps all day, every day; so when I have to wake up, he’s still sound asleep. Imagine we could do that—sleep all day with no consequences? That would be a very comfortable, yet arguably unfulfilling, life.
I will forever be jealous of you early birds out there. My dad wakes up at 5 a.m. every morning, and he enjoys it! I just don’t understand how people wake up early willingly, but I truly admire it. I definitely relate more heavily to night owls, considering that the later it gets, the more awake I feel. Not only am I more energized at night, but I’m also able to do my best work with the least amount of procrastination as the night progresses. My motivation is largely a result of the increasing desire to go to bed, and I can’t sleep unless all of my work is done. Regardless, I find it much easier to function at night.
Despite all of this pro-sleep, anti-early-mornings talk, I always wake up at an adequate time to start my day. Routines are important, though exhausting, and they add structure to life that is necessary for a busy college student, such as myself. My desire for academic success is far greater than my desire for sleep, so forcing myself to get out of bed has become a normal and important part of my life. There are a lot of aspects of life that feel uncomfortable, but they’re important nonetheless. If we just lived comfortable, cozy lives, we wouldn’t learn anything, and we wouldn’t be able to grow.
A lot of the right decisions aren’t easy. When I started college, I made the decision to be a commuter student. My commute is 45 minutes, without traffic—which nearly doubles the commute time, so I wasn’t making life easy for myself; this is something that I understood when I first made the decision to commute. However, I thought that it would be of benefit to me to have a solid routine, and having to wake up extra early for my commute would keep me on the right track. So far, it is definitely working. Although there are undoubtedly days when I wish that I could sleep in, commuting was a great decision for me overall.
For you night owls that have difficulty waking up like me, think of what motivates you most in life as you open your eyes in the morning. This will, hopefully, give you the strength to get out of bed and start your day on a positive note!
Second-Year Freshman is an Opinion column used to explore the unique experiences of Sophomore students who studied remotely their freshman year during the coronavirus pandemic, and are now experiencing campus life for the first time during the 2021-2022 academic year.
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