Quotation on Life

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” – Marianne Williamson

10 Benefits of Rising Early, and How to Do It

Zen Habits has a very good post on this topic. I am reproducing the post here for convenience.

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Every Friday is Happiness Friday on Zen Habits.

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” – Ben Franklin, famously

“Put no trust in the benefits to accrue from early rising, as set forth by the infatuated Franklin …” – Mark Twain

Recently, reader Rob asked me about my habit of waking at 4:30 a.m. each day, and asked me to write about the health benefits of rising early, which I thought was an excellent question. Unfortunately, there are none, that I know of.

However, there are a ton of other great benefits.

Now, let me first say that if you are a night owl, and that works for you, I think that’s great. There’s no reason to change, especially if you’re happy with it. But for me, switching from being a night owl to an early riser (and yes, it is possible) has been a godsend. It has helped me in so many ways that I’d never go back. Here are just a few:

1. Greet the day. I love being able to get up, and greet a wonderful new day. I suggest creating a morning ritual that includes saying thanks for your blessings. I’m inspired by the Dalai Lama, who said, ” Everyday, think as you wake up, ‘today I am fortunate to have woken up, I am alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others, I am going to benefit others as much as I can.’ “
2. Amazing start. I used to start my day by jumping out of bed, late as usual, and rushing to get myself and the kids ready, and rushing to drop them to school and come in to work late. I would walk into work, looking rumpled and barely awake, grumpy and behind everyone else. Not a great start to your day. Now, I have a renewing morning ritual, I’ve gotten so much done before 8 a.m., my kids are early and so am I, and by the time everyone else gets in to work, I’ve already gotten a head start. There is no better way to start off your day than to wake early, in my experience.
3. Quietude. No kids yelling, no babies crying, no soccer balls, no cars, no television noise. The early morning hours are so peaceful, so quiet. It’s my favorite time of day. I truly enjoy that time of peace, that time to myself, when I can think, when I can read, when I can breathe.
4. Sunrise. People who wake late miss one of the greatest feats of nature, repeated in full stereovision each and every day — the rise of the sun. I love how the day slowly gets brighter, when the midnight blue turns to lighter blue, when the brilliant colors start to seep into the sky, when nature is painted in incredible colors. I like doing my early morning run during this time, and I look up at the sky as I run and say to the world, “What a glorious day!” Really. I really do that. Corny, I know.
5. Breakfast. Rise early and you actually have time for breakfast. I’m told it’s one of the most important meals of the day. Without breakfast, your body is running on fumes until you are so hungry at lunchtime that you eat whatever unhealthy thing you can find. The fattier and sugarier, the betterier. But eat breakfast, and you are sated until later. Plus, eating breakfast while reading my book and drinking my coffee in the quiet of the morning is eminently more enjoyable than scarfing something down on the way to work, or at your desk.
6. Exercise. There are other times to exercise besides the early morning, of course, but I’ve found that while exercising right after work is also very enjoyable, it’s also liable to be canceled because of other things that come up. Morning exercise is virtually never canceled.
7. Productivity. Mornings, for me at least, are the most productive time of day. I like to do some writing in the morning, when there are no distractions, before I check my email or blog stats. I get so much more done by starting on my work in the morning. Then, when evening rolls around, I have no work that I need to do, and I can spend it with family.
8. Goal time. Got goals? Well, you should. And there’s no better time to review them and plan for them and do your goal tasks than first thing. You should have one goal that you want to accomplish this week. And every morning, you should decide what one thing you can do today to move yourself further towards that goal. And then, if possible, do that first thing in the morning.
9. Commute. No one likes rush-hour traffic, except for Big Oil. Commute early, and the traffic is much lighter, and you get to work faster, and thus save yourself more time. Or better yet, commute by bike. (Or even better yet, work from home.)
10. Appointments. It’s much easier to make those early appointments on time if you get up early. Showing up late for those appointments is a bad signal to the person you’re meeting. Showing up early will impress them. Plus, you get time to prepare.

How to Become an Early Riser

• Don’t make drastic changes. Start slowly, by waking just 15-30 minutes earlier than usual. Get used to this for a few days. Then cut back another 15 minutes. Do this gradually until you get to your goal time.
• Allow yourself to sleep earlier. You might be used to staying up late, perhaps watching TV or surfing the Internet. But if you continue this habit, while trying to get up earlier, sooner or later one is going to give. And if it is the early rising that gives, then you will crash and sleep late and have to start over. I suggest going to bed earlier, even if you don’t think you’ll sleep, and read while in bed. If you’re really tired, you just might fall asleep much sooner than you think.
• Put your alarm clock far from you bed. If it’s right next to your bed, you’ll shut it off or hit snooze. Never hit snooze. If it’s far from your bed, you have to get up out of bed to shut it off. By then, you’re up. Now you just have to stay up.
• Go out of the bedroom as soon as you shut off the alarm. Don’t allow yourself to rationalize going back to bed. Just force yourself to go out of the room. My habit is to stumble into the bathroom and go pee. By the time I’ve done that, and flushed the toilet and washed my hands and looked at my ugly mug in the mirror, I’m awake enough to face the day.
• Do not rationalize. If you allow your brain to talk you out of getting up early, you’ll never do it. Don’t make getting back in bed an option.
• Have a good reason. Set something to do early in the morning that’s important. This reason will motivate you to get up. I like to write in the morning, so that’s my reason. Also, when I’m done with that, I like to read all of your comments!
• Make waking up early a reward. Yes, it might seem at first that you’re forcing yourself to do something hard, but if you make it pleasurable, soon you will look forward to waking up early. A good reward is to make a hot cup of coffee or tea and read a book. Other rewards might be a tasty treat for breakfast (smoothies! yum!) or watching the sunrise, or meditating. Find something that’s pleasurable for you, and allow yourself to do it as part of your morning routine.
• Take advantage of all that extra time. Don’t wake up an hour or two early just to read your blogs, unless that’s a major goal of yours. Don’t wake up early and waste that extra time. Get a jump start on your day! I like to use that time to get a head start on preparing my kids’ lunches, on planning for the rest of the day (when I set my MITs), on exercising or meditating, and on reading. By the time 6:30 rolls around, I’ve done more than many people do the entire day.

Withdrawal

There have been no updates and posts for the last week for a very good reason. I am done bitching and moaning over every little thing and over the last week I was going through withdrawal from SSRIs. For those of you who have not experienced it, let me tell you.. its a freakin pain in the ass. Anyways, you can read about it in detail on Wikipedia. I hope to return to blogging about “normal” stuff soon.

Friday Roundup

[Image from NASA APOD]

• My mood is beyond low and I think it is the going off meds that is responsible.
• Spent 7 hours in the lab running experiments and in the end the results were inconclusive. Have to go through my data again and see if anything can be salvaged.
• My post-work euphoria was conspicuously absent and was replaced by unfound sorrow.
• A co-worker I used to like working with a lot, irritated the hell out of me.
• Turned down a weekend no-strings attached sex.

Life et. al.

[Image from NASA]

I met with HappyFace yesterday to review my meds and we decided to take me completely off meds I am so happy that I don’t have to worry about depending on chemicals to sustain the little bit of sanity left. I had started to notice the SSRIs inducing a sense of apathy in every single aspect of life. While this was very good for stress issues, it also meant that I was not getting even a little bit bothered about the results of any of my actions. I still have no remorse about my quals results. That cannot be good. Anyways, lets see how not being on medication works out.

Last night I got a call from my sister and she was crying her heart out. Looks like the troubles in my father’s business are starting to permeate into the family situation and she tells me that for the last 3 months my mom, dad, and she have been pretty much having a daily yelling contest. This worries me a lot. I know my father is incapable of segmenting his life and leaving work problems at work. What makes it worse is that he kinda takes everyone for granted and it is often his way or the highway when it comes to family stuff. My mother is very emotional to start with and is easily affected by every little thing. My sister is going through a rough patch herself. She is having to deal with office politics for the first time in her life and her friends are starting to move away leaving her without an external support system. All these have culminated in the gigantic mess that is my family right now. I spent 4+ hrs on the phone last night talking to my sis and mom and doing the best I can to smooth things a bit. I need to have a talk with my dad and I am *so* not looking forward to that.

On the personal side of things, I think I am starting to develop feelings for a friend of mine. She is going through a bad divorce and I am helping her in some small way. I know that she just considers me as a good friend and nothing more. I guess its a good thing that I am able to detect these things early enough to avoid major pitfalls. In other news, I am starting to have dreams about my ex-gf pretty much on a daily basis.

Quals Update

I did not pass my qual exam. QoH put up a good fight on my behalf but could not change the committee’s mind. I will have to take it again in the fall quarter.

Mock Quals

 [from comics.com]

I have invited a few people from the dept to quiz me on the quals topics for a couple of hours tomorrow. I am not sure if I am quite ready to handle it yet, but then again, I never am. This morning’s Agnes comic strip captures my mindset quite succinctly.

Welcome to my new home

I have finally moved my blog from Blogger to my own domain. I have to say, it kinda puts my mind at ease. I was not totally comfortable with the knowledge that someone else had control over my blog; especially since it has come to be a personal diary of kinds.

Anyways, Welcome and hope you enjoy your stay here however short it might be.

Viva La Revolucion

The tech news site digg.com is under siege by its 1 million users and a simple 16 digit Hex code is to blame. It all started when a user posted HD-DVD encryption key on the site so that linux users can play the videos. The post was mysteriously deleted. A repost met with the same fate. Turns out digg admins were acting as MPAA shills and have been actively deleting posts and banning users who posted the key on their site.

Outraged by the sheer audacity and heavy handedness of the admins, the users launched a campaign to flood the site with the key and make every single article on digg’s front page carry the hex code! There have been songs written about it.

It will be interesting to see how long will Kevin hold out and risk loosing his audience.

Quals Update

My quals exam has been scheduled on the morning of the 8th!