How reliable is your inner clock?
Photo by Kate Stone Matheson on Unsplash
In the last several days I had special events back-to-back.
A private Ikebana workshop for employees of a major IT company, Ikebana International New Year party, Hatsugama (初釜), the first formal tea gathering this year. Each event requires preparation from the night before till late and early morning on the day of the event.
Normally I never set an alarm. I wake up at about the same time every morning, no matter how late I go to sleep the night before.
The last several days, however, I had to get up about an hour earlier than usual. Just in case I set an alarm so that I won’t oversleep.
While I was setting up the alarm, I consciously told myself to wake up at the set time. The next morning, without exception I woke up about an hour before the time I was supposed to get up. I lingered a little before I got out of bed, but I could turn off the alarm before it made an annoying sound.
Then I thought, maybe I can rely on my internal clock a little more.
A dog or a cat, your pet begs for food same time every day. Without an alarm clock, they seem to have a daily routine set up for doing when to do what.
Time, after all, is not created by human beings. Maybe we creatures were created because there is a cycle in the universe.
I’m not advocating discarding your alarm clock at all. Our social structure requires us to be super punctual. But you may be surprised by the ability of your body to tell you time. Because, you know, we human beings are part of nature.