This week, my colleagues have been all over the place about time. First they love morning and hate night. Then they love night and hate morning. Great, good for them. But then they lash out at one of the only other available times of day, the afternoon. What’s next — twilight? It’s very difficult to keep up.
Generally speaking, I support my colleagues, even when I vehemently disagree with their takes. But in my opinion, different times are okay on different days, depending on what’s happening and how I’m feeling.
My schedule is usually like this: I try to go to bed around midnight, and then I wake up around 7 a.m. On average, I get about seven hours of sleep. It’s nice.
Some days I wake up in a great mood. I drink a lot of coffee, and there’s a metaphorical but not literal kick in my step as I walk around Brooklyn. I feel energized and excited for what the day holds. I go to work — or if it’s a weekend, I stay in and make some pancakes — and have a generally pleasant time. On those days, I like mornings. But other days, I wake up in a bad mood. I am tired and just want to go back to sleep. No one in the world has ever felt as tired as I feel on those mornings; no one has ever suffered the indignity of their iPhone alarms going off after being snoozed. On those days, I don’t like mornings.
And some nights, I have a lot of energy. I’m interested in staying out past 10 p.m. to socialize, whether it’s at a bar, a restaurant, or a friend’s house. I don’t repeatedly try to work “I’m sleepy” or “Man, I have been up so late” into conversations to demonstrate to people that I don’t want to be wherever I am. Instead, I enjoy lively conversations and feel that I could easily stay awake until upwards of 1 a.m. Other nights, I binge watch Schitt’s Creek, fall asleep on my couch, and eventually — by 9 p.m. — make the journey to my bed. It just really depends on how much sleep I got the night before or if I had a busy day.
As for afternoons, I don’t particularly feel strongly about them. By that time, I’ve already eaten lunch, so I’m no longer hungry. I usually purchase a mid-afternoon seltzer from the work vending machine, and I enjoy that with mild to medium enjoyment. I don’t sit near a window, but it is nice to know that the sun is out at this time. On weekends, afternoons are when I go outside and exercise, or at least tell people that I’m going outside to exercise. Basically, afternoons are just a time to me.
So all in all, I like different times of day on different days. Some days I love mornings; other days I don’t. The same goes for nights. Afternoons, I generally enjoy. I guess evenings are the time of day I feel the most extreme about. I feel passionately that they are fine.
