A Soliloquy on Sleep

I didn't write yesterday because I was rushing off some work which I had promised a client. Only just now did I finally sent the thing off. My head is throbbing from the lack of sleep these last couple of days. So I'm going to take it easy for the rest of the day and hopefully go to bed earlier tonight.

It is a great feeling to have spent the day working hard. Rest is sweeter when well-earned. Rest is important for the mind because a lot of things require sub-conscious processing. I don't normally rush into decisions whenever I'm doing something because I know the mind takes time to come up with the right answer. You just allow it to marinate with all the necessary facts and information. At some point, the solution will pop up.

Sleep is important both to the mind and the body. All self-healing happens during sleep. The body has a natural intelligence and when given the opportunity it will readjust itself to correct imbalances. But you must give it the opportunity to do so. The intelligence of the body is hardest at work during sleep-time. It knows that we are in an inactive state, and it can start doing maintenance work--very much like how our highways and computer systems get fixed late at night when there are no users.

I always find it strange that we consider sleeping and waking up the following day a given. Why are we so confident that we'll wake up at all? Doesn't death sneak up on us like sleep? And when we sleep, are we not yielding ourselves to the higher powers that could giveth and taketh?

So wake up every morning with a sense of gratitude that you are alive--to rise smelling the fresh morning air and be given a chance to see your loved ones another day. Kahlil Gibran expresses it most beautifully in the Prophet:

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; To rest at noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy; To return home at eventide with gratitude; And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise on your lips.

Yet how casually do we waste our days when we know that its store is finite. We have no choice but to yield to sleep every night for life imposes its mandatory cycle of death and resurrection that we may pursue our waking hours with a renewed vigour everyday. How sadly can this go wrong for some, who despite being blessed with fame and beauty still find life unwelcoming.

We must also pursue life with the humility that we are all vulnerable to the vicissitudes of life. And that no one is immune from the forces of despair and depression which could also creep up unseen on us, as quietly as sleep.

Perhaps the best weapon against the forces of depression is an attitude of daily gratitude. Whatever little we have, is a blessing still. We slept and woke up alive. And that is all that matters.