Wake Up at 8. The Rest Doesn’t Matter.
It has been a very busy, but very productive time for me. A very exciting time.
Probably the biggest thing that happened was in July. My birthday. I turned 48 this year. And even though that is not a nice, round number like 40 or 50, it hit me rather profoundly. I don’t mean that it sent me into despair or anything like that. But for some reason, it became a milestone in my life. Perhaps a milestone that will mark the rest of my existence.
It was the night before my birthday, rather late. Probably around 1 or 2 in the morning. Well, what would be considered late for most people. But you must first understand that for the past 25 years I have had a somewhat unusual schedule. I go to bed at 4am and I rise at noon. This is a schedule that I had before ever becoming a father, and so it is the only version of me my children have ever known.
I think it was primarily my introversion that caused me to adopt the schedule. Being around other people, being in social situations, it just wears me out. It depletes my social battery. To the point that I just have to be alone. And the great thing about being up between midnight and 4am is that I was always alone during those times. Even after marriage and four children, I was alone. No matter what happened in a day, I had those four hours to myself.
I would love to sit here and say that I always spent those hours reading something noble or working on my books. Sometimes I did that. But sometimes I would just play a video game or watch YouTube. We might call it mixed-use time. Its primary purpose was just for me to mentally recharge from the day.
Fast forward to that night before my birthday. I was sitting there at 2am thinking about the fact that I was going to turn 48. I began thinking about the state of my creative work, about Archaios, about how I had much more material in me than I felt I was going to be able to manifest to the world. I began thinking about when I would be able to retire, wondering if I would have time to write then…you can see where these thoughts were headed. I had a heavy feeling settling over me: you will one day die with your life’s work incomplete, unfinished. I sort of sat with that. I accepted it. Digested it. I wasn’t happy about it, of course. But what could I do? I had sons to raise. A family to support.
And then it happened. You can call it the voice of God if you like. Or my unconscious mind. I’m not here to argue the metaphysics. But I heard a thought in my mind as clear as day:
Wake up at 8. The rest doesn’t matter.
Now, this hit me like a thunderbolt. For those out there that may not think this sounds early, just take whatever time you wake up and move it back 4 hours. That’s what I was looking at. But I obeyed it like a divine geas. I didn’t even really think about it or consider it. I didn’t weigh it out. I didn’t consider what ramifications it might have, to drastically change my sleeping schedule after 25 years. And when I crept into my bedroom where my wife was asleep and set my alarm to 8am, I knew it wasn’t just for one day. This was it. This was life.
I woke up the next morning at 7:45am, with fire in my veins. I knelt and thanked God for the day. I turned off the alarm before it could fire. Then I went and started writing.
I have done that every day since then. Today is the 72nd day.
Such a small thing. So small. And yet…everything has changed.
I have written more in the past 30 days than I have in the preceding year. Quite a bit more. Think about that. And beyond that there has been a change in how I view The Work, my life, my job as an academic—all for the positive.
Suddenly, moving my writing work from a “weird thing I do when I have time” to something that, no matter what, is how I spend my first 4 hours every day…well, it has changed how I see my path. Suddenly I begin to think, perhaps I really can share my work with the world. Perhaps that crazy dream of being a full-time writer (a dream that began in earnest when I was 21) isn’t completely crazy. Perhaps I can begin seriously moving towards that.
Now, when I look forward to the second half of my life, I no longer see a life ending with the work incomplete.
I see victory.
