Sleep

Sleep is an amazingly significant part of people's lives.  Apparently, from birth to death, the average person spends half of their life asleep.  Wow.  That's a lot of time spent doing something no one fully understands.  And yet this is possible despite the fact that in our adolescent and early adult years, we deprive ourselves of sleep constantly.  I know people who regularly pull all-nighters or get only a nap at night.  Somehow they function.  I've never discovered that ability in myself, though.  I have to get a good 7-9 hours a night.  Which is both a blessing and a curse.  It means I have to manage my time closely (no mean feat with projects, essays, and day-to-day work I seem to accumulate so rapidly) in order to get to bed at a reasonable hour.  When in doubt, I prefer to wake up early and work then.  I find myself so much more productive early in the morning.  Plus, the immediate deadline, the start of the actual day, forces me to focus and stop procrastinating, whereas at night, I can always say, "I still have__ hours before this actually needs to be done," and then I never finish.  That solid deadline gives me all the motivation I need to be more productive than at any other time of the day.  And I love to wake up early.  I've already ranted and raved about the beauties of early mornings, but I really believe it.  The world is so fresh and new, how can you help but be more awake than at any other time?

And I'm grateful for people who help pick you back up when you fall, and for the knowledge of just how to fall right.