How often do you set your alarm with every intention of getting up and getting an early start on your day, only to reset it, or hit the snooze? I mean, you have a perfectly rational reason to do so - the baby woke up from 1:00-1:45a, and again at 3:00a. The cat was making a bunch of noise because we weren't giving him any attention.
I think it happened for me every single day this week. And every time I was changing the alarm from 5:15 to 5:30a, I heard the voice of Jocko Willink in my mind:
That pillow is suffocating your dreams...
Now, what he is getting at is that my desire for comfort is getting in the way of practicing discipline, and his whole mantra is that discipline equals freedom.
Needless to say, every day this week, my morning routine was thrown off by just a little bit. It was a little bit more chaotic, and I struggled to get out the door at my intended time. All because I lacked the discipline to get up, seeking an additional 15 minutes in bed, which were not even that restful, since I knew the next alarm was imminent.
Beginning your day with the thought of, "I failed at task #1 today. Great start!" is...well...not a great start.
At the start of book 5 of his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius makes a pretty strong statement to essentially "get your ass out of bed in the morning!" But, I'm not going to focus on that one today.
Instead, I'm going to focus on a point he makes a little bit later in book 5 about when we fall short:
Not to feel exasperated, or defeated, or despondent because your days aren't packed with wise and moral actions. But to get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human - however imperfectly - and fully embrace the pursuit that you've embarked on
Meditations 5.9
The worst thing I could do is say, "Wow, I started by failing with the first thing I wanted to do today," and then let that set the stage for my entire day. "Get back up when you fail." That's it, right there. Just get back up - "and fully embrace the pursuit that you've embarked on."
Don't be exasperated or defeated when you fail. Get back up and continue on the journey to a good life.