These are the two things I have on my mind today. Let me explain.
For the past year or so I’ve been reading articles about what is known as “the two sleeps.” Apparently, in times gone by people used to have two shorter sleeping periods at night instead of one longer one. They would go to bed, sleep for a few hours, then wake up for an hour or two, and then go back to sleep. They considered this perfectly normal, and found ways to keep themselves occupied during the awake time between the two sleeps.
Today most people go to bed and expect to sleep straight through until the morning, and apparently a lot of people do just that. But there are others, like myself, who don’t necessarily sleep the whole night through. Every few nights, I find that I wake up after sleeping for a few hours. When this first started happening several years ago, I thought I had insomnia, and I used to lie there trying to get back to sleep, often in a tizzy with a million thoughts churning around in my mind.
But then one night I thought: Enough of this! I’m wide awake and I’m not going to fight it. So I turned on my lamp, grabbed a book, read for about an hour, and then felt I was ready to go back to sleep—which I was. Now I’ve actually come to enjoy my “two sleep” nights and always wake up feeling refreshed the next morning.
I have a lot of friends who say they’re insomniacs. I wonder if they’re actually “two sleepers” instead, like me.
OK, so what does all this have to do with TGIF (Thank God it’s Friday)? I see people posting this message all over Facebook when each Friday rolls around. I suppose this means that either they really hate their jobs, or they’re exhausted from their jobs, or bored with their jobs, etc.
I have to admit that the thought of getting up every morning, having to dress a certain way, having to get oneself to a particular place to work, working there all day, and then having to get oneself home is not my ideal. I stopped doing that kind of job many years ago. And I’m noticing, quite happily, that more and more people are working from home, either for a company, or as free-lancers. I welcome this change, and hope it continues to grow. And then of course there are the artists and musicians, who aren’t tied to a 9-5 schedule. Nevertheless, I understand that there are some types of jobs where you simply have to get up and “go” to work.
The important thing is loving what we do, and if you love doing a 9-5, that’s great. More power to you.
Now, back to the two sleeps. If you work a day job, it’s going to be tough to do two sleeps, because you’ll probably wake up too late to get to the job on time, unless you go to bed very early. But for all of us freelancers, having two sleeps can work just fine, and frees you from that nagging feeling that you’re an insomniac.
Having flexible hours, sleeping in a natural way, getting up when you’re ready, working at something you love so that the litany “Thank God it’s Friday” becomes irrelevant—that’s my ideal. How about you?
finallygettingdowntobrasstacks 