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This world is not ours. No matter how many inspirational hang gliding kitty posters you subscribe to, there are only a few guarantees in life: death, taxes (unless you are a European soccer megastar), and having less ownership of your own time than you expect.
And I say this as a white man without kids. So, I have it good. In fact, it’s never going to get better for me than it is right now. And yet, just like everyone, I often feel stretched to the brink.
My point is, the biggest myth of our time is that our time is our time at all.
Especially in an age when the internet is in our pockets, on our wrists, and in clouds all around us, we are always on call. To friends, family, bosses, and corporations who are absolutely listening in and logging all of our persnickety fetishes.
That’s why the only true “me time” is sleep time.
Luckily for me, it’s the time I cherish the most. If I’m being honest, odds are that my sleep hours are the best hours of a given day, and I make that statement as someone who is very happy with my life. Yes, of course the best moments in life are far superior to sleeping, but how often are you really getting the best moments in life? And isn’t sleep better than the crappy ones and even the many mediocre ones too?
It makes me want to make a poster that has a cat sleeping on the floor, adorned with the words, “Just Sleep, Ya Know?”
And now I’ve done it. Still, sleeping would have been a better use of my 7 minutes.
There are only two types of people in this world that should not prefer sleeping to their waking hours: 1) People who have serious night terror issues; and 2) the Hemsworth brothers.
Lions are the kings of their domain, and what do they do with their power? They sleep 75 percent of the day. That’s because when you are sleeping, you don’t owe anyone anything. Your student loans, your 9 to 5, your acne, your neighbor’s barking dog, none of those things exist when you are asleep. I mean, they do, but not to your brain. I called my lawyer to check, and even your prenup doesn’t exist when you sleep. Want to keep them from taking half? Go to sleep!
When you are asleep, all the bullshit goes away.
If you want to be the king, then you are! If you want to be the queen, you can be! If you want to be the shoes of the king or queen so you can rub discretely up against their royal feet, that’s weird but still acceptable!
Far be it for me to tell you what you can’t do, but the truth is that all of those things are highly unlikely to come true when you are awake. That’s why I love sleep. Sleep is my fairy tale. Also, how great does sleeping feel? I can tell you all of my favorite places to sleep, all of the weird places I’ve fallen asleep, and all of the places I would one day like to sleep. Now that I think about it, while my friends are all having kids, many of my future goals revolve around a good sleep.
If you made a pie chart with the major reasons I am not yet a parent, sleep would be a solid third of the pie. For tangent’s sake, this is how it actually looks.
Also, I need time to make useful charts
True story: I once bought a button-down shirt, brought it home, tried it on, and asked my wife what she thought of it. She told me she liked it, but moreover, the shirt pattern was exactly the same as the comforter on our bed. I bought a shirt that I didn’t even realize appealed to me because it subconsciously reminded me of my favorite place in the world. You would think I would feel shame about that, but it’s absolutely the opposite. It’s comforting and confirming. That’s how much I love sleep. Sleep is my currency. Sleep is my superhero.
But unfortunately, this superhero also has a villain: the alarm clock.
When that alarm goes off, and your time is snatched back away from you, the first thing you notice is how different and less good this new state of being is. It’s a dimensional ejector seat, which is why it makes us groggy and squinty and irritable. Everytime we wake, we’re basically getting kicked out of heaven. And since heaven isn’t real (unless you’re a Hemsworth brother), sleep is your closest facsimile.
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