{14} on slothful mornings

I choose “slothful” over “lazy” because sloths only appear lazy to people who do not understand sloth biology/metabolism. The fact is, sloths move, eat and sleep exactly the amount they need to in order to stay healthy. “Lazy” implies that one is being less energetic than you could be, if you tried harder, but for a sloth there is no try harder because that would be counterproductive to their very survival.

In the same manner of changing my perspective about life from “should” to “want”, I’m not going to call my mornings lazy. They are slothful. Because I am not a morning person, never have been, never will be. From now on, the pace I function at in the morning is no more and no less than what I need to do.

I have spent my entire adult life trying to be the person who gets out of bed and exercises, meditates, makes breakfast, wakes up. I am not that person.

I am the person who stays in bed for 30 minutes after the alarm goes off, slowly mustering the energy to stumble out of bed to the kitchen to take some aspirin and fix a cup of tea, only just then realizing I have no clothes on, so stumbling back to the bedroom for a nightshirt, hopefully picking up my glasses somewhere along the way. I am non-verbal in the morning, and definitely non-exercise and non-breakfast.

Yes, of course, there is merit in striving for excellence and challenging ourselves. Maybe some people can over-ride their instincts for self-preservation and do the things their body and mind are begging them not to do. I can say with confidence that for 30 years, when it comes to mornings, I have tried to be that person. Tried, and failed.

Yes, that suggestion you are about to make: I tried that. I tried that, and the other thing, and also that thing. I’ve done all the recommendations, short of taking a cold shower as soon as you get out of bed because I just do not need that kind of trauma in my life. I have nothing to prove, here.

I thought I had something to prove, for a long time. I was enraptured by the “shoulds” that wound through my head at all hours, by the idea that I could be a better person if I just did what I should do. That it also meant short-circuiting my own instincts and needs; those never factored, because I was not important enough (even to myself) to show any kind of mercy or kindness.

This morning I got up slowly, put aside any idea of forcing myself to do the things I “should” do and focused on what I wanted to do. What I ended up doing was…re-creating my father’s habits, ironically: Wake up slowly (he always stayed in bed after his alarm would go off, he called it his “thinking time”), putter around making coffee, head out to the patio to read the newspaper. My adaptations are bullet-proof tea instead of coffee, my kitchen instead of the patio, and the internet instead of a newspaper. In essence, though, no different a ritual than his.

By the time I needed to get ready for work, I felt great. I was pleasantly awake, not bitter and frustrated and hating myself. Morning wasn’t a chore, it wasn’t exhausting.

My slothful morning: let me show you it!