24 January 2010

Energy

Without energy, it becomes impossible to be motivated even to complete the simplest tasks. This is one of the things that my life coach and I originally discussed. It is also a point taken by Gretchen Rubin, author of the blog and book entitled "The Happiness Project." (I highly recommend both the book and the blog.)

With this in mind, I have started going to bed at the same time every night, and mostly getting up around the same time in the morning. I am the sort that loves staying up late, but I'm not so great at getting up early. It's not that I can't get up early (I've had jobs where I have to be at work at 5:30 am), but rather that I choose not to. Keeping a routine (not my cup of tea) has given me one major benefit: energy.

There was a time in Japan where I would go to bed at 1 am or so and get up at 6 am. Essentially, I felt like Edward Norton's character in "Fight Club," which led him to invent Tyler Durden in his sleep deprived state. In other words, I felt like the walking dead. I then realized that I needed a bedtime. Hallucinations did not seem like a good choice even if they mustered the likes of Brad Pitt.

This go-round has not been as bad as when I was in Japan, but I had been noticing that I have not been nearly as chipper or motivated as I would like to be. Now I have energy almost all day long. Before I started this bedtime regime, I would get extremely tired in the middle of the afternoon and could barely function. I mostly never feel this way any more. If I get sleepy, it is not nearly as intense as it was before the new schedule.

As I have no job and the economy is not exactly booming, this means that I really need to pour copious amounts of energy into the search. It also allows me to take care of other tasks that I would not have vigor for otherwise. Energy equates to life force and productivity.

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