Why Is It So Hard To Get Out of Bed in the Morning?

Morning is my least favourite time of day.  There’s this annoying buzzing noise near my head, a feeling of tiredness, and this dead weight that requires much energy to move from horizontal to vertical.  It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the morning itself, but… If I’m lying down, why get up?  The same rationale keeps me up late at night: if I’m having fun, why go to bed?  Ahh, the logic of a night person…

There was one time in my life (let’s call it a ‘phase’) when I, believe it or not, got into the habit of getting up early to go for a morning walk.  I remember it as quite a refreshing phase, a time when I didn’t get up in a mad rush to go to work, but I got up to do something for me.  It was quite revolutionary, really – suddenly my life felt like it didn’t revolve around work.  I no longer struggled out of bed because it was late and I had to get to work – I got up because it was a new day, there were many things to do, I was going to kick it off with a walk in the crisp morning air… and then later in the day, I’d do the work thing – but work was no longer the primary reason for dragging myself out of bed.  Empowering and radical!  It was a whole new outlook on life, a great reason to get up in the morning.

But that was just a phase.  These days, I rarely get up early to go for a morning walk.  Instead, my first thought usually extends as far as the kitchen and my coffee machine.  There’s no better sound than the happy little rumblings it makes as it heats up in readiness for churning out a double shot long black.  For me, that’s reason enough to get out of bed (sad, but true).

So – what’s your reason for getting out of bed?  Work, school, family, coffee, food, walk..?

On one level, I find it hard to get out of bed in the morning because I’m not a morning person.  But then, if I’m completely honest, it’s hard also because deep down, I have lots of those little doubts about myself and the meaning to my daily life.  Why should I bother to get out of bed today and do my daily tasks?  What difference – if any – will it make to the world?  To those around me?  Will anyone notice if I don’t show up and do whatever is I’m meant to do today?

Or maybe I shouldn’t be defining myself by the stuff I do every day.  Last Sunday at SCPC, Pete Thompson spoke about another way to think of our identity and meaning: we are people made in the image of God to be in a good relationship with him and each other.

Where do you place your identity and meaning?  Is it in what you do, or in who you are?  What would happen if you redefined yourself in relation to God, and spent each day getting to know him better, letting this relationship shape all your other relationships and the stuff you do?

Why do you get out of bed in the morning?

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