Has anyone else noticed a slight air of smugness among those who announce they get up particularly early in the morning? Almost as if they were laying claim to some sort of moral advantage. If someone lets it be known they get up at 5:30 a.m. to get ready for work there is inevitably someone else in the group who will play one-upsmanship and note that they get up at *5:00 *a.m. (oftentimes to engage in some particularly industrious/virtuous activity such as working out at the gym). I don’t know about you but I see a historic link here with these sorts of attitudes and good Protestants.
Of course we’re slightly smug. On a weekend day, when I can get up and accomplish all of my chores/errands before you’ve even gotten out of bed? Yeah, I’m gonna feel kind of smug.
I say all of this with a smile because I’ve been married (twice) to women who were decidedly not morning people. There is definitely compromise to be had in such a relationship. Except with road trips. On the road by 6am, dammit. I want to still have day left in front of me whenever we get where we’re going.
Kinda late in the morning for a post like this, doncha think?
I wake up at 4:47 AM.
I don’t see it as smug any more than folks who stay up till the wee hours doing stuff. You wanna do your laundry at midnight and scrub the grout at 2AM? Have a blast. Just don’t wake me, and I’ll do the same for you when I get up at 6.
Seems like a waste of a good smug.
Our cats wake up between 3-3:30.
And so do I.
Night owls do the same thing except they one-up each other on who stayed up the latest.
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You poor late risers, you miss out on so much!
Just last Saturday, a friend called me at 10:30 and said, “I’m just getting up but, after a shower and all, I’m up for brunch. You in?” I just laughed because, by 10:30, I had gotten up, started the laundry, gone to the store, switched the laundry to the dryer, vacuumed, sat out on the deck with coffee and my phone, come back inside, retrieved the laundry, and had a “late” breakfast at 10:00 am. LOL
Yeah - to the extent I perceive any early riser smugness, I think it pretty much counterbalanced by night owl smugness.
Personally, I’ve experienced both. As a young man, I often stayed up to see the sun rise. Now, it is an exceptional evening that I’m not in bed by 10. I just prefer being up and around in the a.m. Things seem quieter, and fewer people are around. Of course, folk could say the same about being up and active in the middle of the night…
Plus - the earlier I get in to work, the earlier I can leave. The first couple of hours in the morning - with few people at work - seem to move infinitely faster than the last couple if I had arrived later.
Pretty much this. I always wake up around 4:30 or so, and it’s just not worth trying to force myself back to sleep. Also, getting in around 5 and leaving at 1:30 really opens up my day and avoiding traffic is always a plus!
I also try to make it a point to find some way to document my presence when I first get in. (Usually replying to an internal e-mail so co-workers don’t think I just duck out early.)
At one of my old jobs, they encouraged people to work from home, and it was heavily abused by some. You’d hear someone claim to their superiors that they worked all day, the day before, and then later mention to a co-worker about the great golf game they had yesterday. So, I try to make sure people know that I’m in the office and working away.
Amateurs, the lot of ya!
I wake up two hours BEFORE my bedtime, just to get an early start.
The REAL early risers in this world have negative rise times…look at you slackers, lollygagging away with your wake times that are positive ordinal numbers in front of your sleep times.
I guess it just leaves us real earlies more time to get a jump on the rest of you! Why just this morning I worked out, took out the trash, worked a full day, came home, raised my 10 year old into adulthood, got 3 promotions, retired, and started shopping for retirement homes.
And what have YOU done with your morning? Walked the dog?
This started for me when I worked in Southern California … I had to be there no later than 8am, but they unlocked the doors at 6am … the I-15 was empty that early and fairly light traffic at 3pm …
So, yeah, I do see the dawn every morning now … and yeah, I do think you’re lazy if you didn’t … damned slackers … the only downside is I never make it past halftime during Monday Night Football …
The point is that we don’t miss out on things. We just do them at a different time. When you’re going to bed at nine or ten PM we still have several productive hours ahead of us.
You miss out on doing laundry?
I’d wake up at 10, have brunch, hit the store on the way back and throw my clothes in the wash sometime that evening/night since laundry done at 10:30pm is the same as laundry done at 7am (especially if you’re up until 1am anyway)
We get more done before breakfast than the rest of you get done all day. Sluggards!
-silenus, who is awake by 4:30 and up by 5 every morning, and has been for the last 35 years.
Suckers
But you try and tell the young people today that… and they won’t believe ya’.
Nothing smug about it. A career in the military ruined sleeping in for me forever. Seven is very late for me, and usually only if I’m exhausted from the day’s activities.
Somewhat more seriously, I think so much of this has to do with how invigorating sunlight is for you. I get that night owls are just shifting what time they’re being most productive and/or having the most fun. But that doesn’t work for me because the sun going down is kind of like a bird having a cover put over its cage. I don’t function nearly as well, nor am I anywhere near as inspired when it’s dark outside.
Since daylight is my motivator, I try to soak up as much of it as I can. Then I take shelter and hide out when the sun goes away.
This is it for me. So I get up at 5am. My Wife often gets up at 4am, but she works 10 hour days. And goes to the gym before work.
I really like getting off at 3:30pm, home by 4:15, still a little light in the sky in the winter. It also helps to get home before my wife so I can plow snow. That way she can get up the driveway, and also, her car isn’t in the way.
I keep pretty much the same schedule on the weekend. Might sleep in till 6am.