Positive Feedback

Today I think I broke my record for the sleepiest I've ever been for consecutive hours. Know the burning feeling you get behind your eyes when you are stupidly tired? You know that 7am-on-a-Saturday and you forgot to turn the alarm off -drowsy. Where you curse yourself for being so dumb as to not turn off the alarm and spend the next four hours tossing and turning until finally dragging your ass out of bed.

I feel like I've been spending a lot of my awake time with that feeling recently. Today's tired fesitivities were the culmination of both a) 11 pm hockey last night and b) somehow getting myself out of bed this morning and getting dressed to find out I had another hour until my alarm was supposed to buzz. Which, in truth, is a very mixed blessing. You're so very happy for the windfall of the extra hour before truly having to activate, but know very clearly that no sleep over that next hour will be meaningful in any way shape or form.

I think more than anything though, this permanent hazy mental state I find myself in recently is because I've just been awake a lot more. And, I think, for an incredibly good reason. From shortly after I wake up during the work week my day basically belongs to my employer until five. Now although this is pretty standard, it can be an eternity when you're not overly enthused about the prospect of straddling the chair in your office for the next eight and half hours. Great company, great employer - but I'm not an office worker. Therefore, the closest I can equivilate my mental state to when I walk out those office doors at five is a jail break at a prison. Get out, and maximize all the time you can before they find you and bring you back.

So I find myself monday through friday staying up until one or two in the am and as a consequence wake up sleepy everyday. And, after I muddle through the work day on a cocktail of rice crispies and coffee, by the time days end rolls around I'm just finding some energy! So then you stay awake later again, wake up sleepy, rinse and repeat. To give it the biochemical terminology, it's a pretty heavy positive feedback cycle.

So why not rest on the weekends to get some energy back? Hell no, I'm not devoting my time on my two free days to gain energy for my prison term. Hilarious idea, though.

I just wonder how many people live the same as me in the regard? Stay up late to avoid work, go to work tired and under preform. Hate work because you're under preforming and tired, and then stay up late again because you don't want to go back to work in the morning.

I feel like if I don't get out of my cycle now I might never do it. A lot like kinetic and static friction... I feel like getting started in the right direction is the hardest part, but once I get moving it'll be easier to maintain.

Think about it, let me know. It has to be more common than just me, anyone else live like this? I know there are enough people who hate thier job that I can't be the only one.

As an aside, someone brought it up to me yesterday that 'we' (people my age) are often reminded that youth is wasted on the young. However, I'm not sure we are trying to waste it... I just wonder if we're not aware of all the options available to us.

Now, I need a vacation so I can quit coffee, again, for the fifth time.

Peace in the east,

Much love,

Sean