Hoots of a Misunderstood Night Owl

After having a two hour long conversation about my career, it was remarked that I really needed to get my sleeping schedule to order. Recently, or really, since my senior year of high school, my sleep pattern has been defined by extremely late nights and constant guilt. A constant cycle of 2am to 11am followed by a "i'm going to sleep early tonight", only resulted in disappointment and inevitably, this blog post being written at 1am.

But instead of doing the constructive thing, and actually fixing my sleeping pattern, one of my favourite activities is to instead question why I end up allowing the sleep abuse to continue, and over the years I actually have developed a theory.

It's the space.

I'm a naturally anxious person, both in the sense that I get anxious about stuff, but also my temperament is like a newborn fluffy bunny, constantly on the lookout for potential threats. I am also one to place immense pressure on myself to meet expectations of others, I therefore spend the majority of my waking hours trying to satisfy and quench the onslaught of "can you please" and "are you able to", which when combined with fluffy bunny temperament, leaves me with very little time for self reflection and improvement. However, something that magically happens everyday, is that if you wait long enough, all the sources of the expectation get quite sleepy, and everybody eventually goes to sleep. Suddenly, the world is transformed into a place where the only expectation if that you are alone and not disturbing anybody... excellent!

Then, operating under the expectation-less cover of night I find myself free to ponder my own goals, write articles, write scripts, edit videos and be the best version of myself.

Today however, I made yet another realisation about my 1am-3am haven. Not only is it a time when all the expectations of the world fade away, but it is also when the very norms of society dissolve into an inconsequential bubble of relaxation. No more is it a problem if you have applied for 10 jobs or if you are still working on your passion project with no prospects, the world is quiet, an while its asleep, you don't need money and you don't need to rush into anything. The night simply asks that you relax and rest your body for the expectation of tomorrow.

So that is why I love the night, I love the silence, I love the carefree darkness but most of all, I love what gets to wait for me tomorrow.