Thoughts from a Night-Owl

Do you ever stay up late just because you like the sound of silence. I do this when I can. I don't know what it is about the silence but it seems to renew me. It's 2:35am. Everyone's sleeping, I know I should go to bed, but it is so peaceful this time of night. I don't have the luxury of doing this when the school year is in so I'm taking advantage of it this summer.


It's interesting how our bodies will slide back into what is natural for us. I'm a night person. I don't hate the mornings, but it's a discipline to make myself go to sleep early and wake up early. When I don't have to I start sliding back into the stay up/get up late routine. I do my best thinking when it's late at night. I connect with myself and God late at night. I have my greatest creative bursts at night.


Natural inclination and conditioning do play a part in whether you're a night person or a morning person, but I think we are born with one or the other. Whatever we slide back into is who we are. I've always wondered why some people that are morning people think that getting up when the sun comes up is the morally right thing to do. When the morning people are going to bed I'm getting my second wind and accomplishing an amazing amount of work. I would never tell someone that staying up late is the morally right thing to do and right way to live. Perhaps it all springs from the saying, "Early to bed, Early to Rise, Makes a Man healthy, wealthy and wise". If this is a true statement, would it be logically correct to say that the opposite should also be true? "Late to bed, Late to Rise, Makes a man sickly, poor and foolish." I think we should change this saying to say, "Whether Early to Bed or Late to Bed, our life choices have the power to make us healthy, wealthy and wise". It doesn't have the same ring, but it is much closer to truth.


No matter how much I will myself, discipline myself, routine myself to death, I am never as productive in the early morning as I am in the late nights. It's not the late night or early wake that causes health, wealth or wisdom. It's our attitude towards life and whether we choose to be victimized by life or to learn from life. We are a mosaic of our life experiences. Some are wonderful and filled with joy while others are painful and leave scars. It is these very things that make us who we are today. If we were to delete any of our life experiences we would cease to be the people we are today. Do we live with regret? Yes, but we don't wallow in it we learn from it. Do we struggle with moral evil that's been forced on us? Yes, but we don't allow it to destroy our soul. Do we give up and become fatalistic? No, we grow, change, develop, hone the skills we've learned and pass them on to others so that they can live full, joy-filled, productive lives. Do we blame others for where we've landed in our life? No, We choose to walk the road called "Forgiveness" and and push in to God until we believe, see, know, understand and live the life he called us to and created us to be. This is what happens to me when I stay up late and sit in the silence!!!


Well, I will be back to teaching in a little over a month so in a few weeks I will have to start the process of changing my body back over to getting up early. For now I'm just going to enjoy the peace and quiet. Perhaps while all of you morning people are sleeping I'll write a book, solve world poverty or just watch a movie and chat with the other night owls on Facebook or perhaps I'll write a blog for all those fellow night-owls.