Standing Outside the Fire
It wasn’t my alarm ringing at 5:30am that woke me up; instead, the angry shaking from my wife was what started my day. It took a moment to realize what was emitting the harsh jingle before blindly petting the carpet in search of the source. Once silenced my brain was ready to fall back into dreamland as quickly as that screen turned black. My sleep-tracking app read six hours and change at 70% sleep quality. That was enough reason to roll back over and attempt to pad those stats. With every ounce of my body committed to sleeping, a little voice was awake enough to remind me I’d already pulled this maneuver twice this week. I'd set an easy goal to start with, wake up early enough to meditate and get a quick run in before work a couple days a week. So far my desire to sleep outweighed my new agenda and procrastination was there to remind me tomorrow would be there to fall back on. The shame of sleeping in hit me on my way to work both Monday and Tuesday. On the third attempt, tha