Cake
Every once in a while, the perfect word just shows up. Well, it doesn't just show up—ok, sometimes it just shows up—but more often I dig it out.
For the last four years, I have been excavating my relationship with and understanding of time and its relationship with my contribution to the world. It’s not a question I will ever fully answer, but I hope to uncover some truths—if that is the right word—or some moments that resonate with enough people that they feel like something worth believing.
And these truths are not Truths. They are not risky. They don’t, as far as I can imagine, conflict with any other belief about how we should spend the time we have. For example, at the core of my archaeology is the idea that we should spend most of our time on the things that are the most important to us. We can all argue with what should be most important—money, family, politics, social causes, self—but we should all agree that important things are important. Language isn’t math (though math is language) but it can be kind of mathy.
One problem that has caused me grief is managing my morning time. In last week’s blog, inspired by Cal Newport’s “schedule shutdown complete,” I came up with my own shutdown word—rather a shutdown clause—Let the noisy world grow quiet—to manage my afternoon time. I say this “red velvet rope” of words at 4pm each day as a signal to turn off my computer, walk away from my job at my desk, and engage in the other parts of my life that give the job purpose, to enjoy the things that the money from the job supports like family, home, and Starbucks.
Part of my strategy to enable walking away at 4pm is getting up at 5am. And, to figure out how best to use that morning time, I found another book to inspire me: “Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod. Hal, like Cal, has spun a basic idea & a catchy 1940s football All-American name into a gazillion dollars. Cal says you should remind yourself that your workday has ended when it ends by speaking aloud some version of “my work here is done.” Similarly, Hal says you should get up early and get shit done.
Hal even has an acronym, SAVERS, for what shit you should get done each morning.
S: Silence. Start your morning with meditation
A: Affirmations: Tell yourself and the universe how you see yourself in the world
V: Visualize: See yourself as you see yourself in the world
E: Exercise: Move your body
R: Read. Spend some time reading books that relate to your goals
S: Scribe: Write, journal, put pen to paper
There are 3 reasons I cannot refer to my morning as a Miracle Morning.
Every time I say “miracle morning” the song “It’s a Beautiful Morning” by The Rascals pops into my head & it's starting to drive me crazy.
I’m not super keen on alliteration (kind of cheap) and I’m not sure miracle is the right word for me.
Hal, who goes just by his first name on his website and has a movie coming out about this book, is irritating.
I’m actually kind of embarrassed that I am using his Miracle Morning/SAVERS acronym for inspiration. But, don’t worry, I’ll subvert and improve it.
How do I savor my morning (get it—saver/savor—bet Hall didn’t think of that)? How do I “red velvet rope” the beginning of my day as well as the end? What name can I give it that informs my actions & encourages me to feel excited to get up at 5 am? Well, that’s where the word I dug up comes in.
My morning is my primelight.
Not gaslight. Not highlight. Not Amazon Prime. Not primetime. It’s not a miracle; it’s a discipline & an ask.
Primelight: the first, the earliest, the most active, thriving, or satisfying; the best light of the day. A time to prepare, put into working order, and instruct the day beforehand.
I’m not going to saver or savor it—I’m just gonna fucking eat it. And wash it all down with a shit-ton of coffee.
5am is not that bad, but I get up at 4:50 in order to get the coffee on and make it to my space by 5. Once I’ve arrived, I have 2.5 hrs to Primelight? of Primelight?
5:00-5:30: Stretch & Meditate. I move my body and slow my mind. I just woke up & haven’t even drank the coffee yet, but for some reason my mind is already plotting through my day. I take this time to tell myself I have this time.
5:30-5:45: Affirmation, Visualization, & Prayer. I look up for instruction. This is the ask and the answer & the ask again.
5:45-6: Journal. Not real writing, just spilling out & sweeping up words into neat piles.
6:00-6:30: Read. I like to have three books going at a time—fiction, non-fiction, and audio. Right now, I am reading all those Hals and Cals and similar things in this space. I already confessed that I did not exactly read the books I’m using to inspire my morning and evening parameters. I read about them. I watched the TedTalks. I checked out the websites. But there are actual, complete books I read at this time. But that is another blog.
6:30 to 7/7:30. Write. Ironically or appropriately—not sure which—this is the time in which I have the hardest time figuring out what to do.
I’m trying to better attend to my creative intuition & Marie Antoinette just came to mind in here—the idea of confusing luxuries for necessities. Cake for bread, palace for home, jewels for heads.
Time for time.
But I can eat my time and have it too.
Primelight: the first, the earliest, the most active, thriving, or satisfying; the best light of the day. A time to prepare, put into working order, and instruct the day beforehand.
Consuming my time makes more time. Yes, the days are longer since they start earlier, but it’s more than that—the days are fuller for their emptiness. I’ve been waking up at 5 and putting myself through a routine to “free time and ease conflict.” A couple of blogs ago, it was a plan. In the last couple of days, it’s become a reality. Yesterday, I spent most of the day sure I was forgetting something, that I was not somewhere I was supposed to be because I actually had the time, energy, and patience to do what I needed & wanted to do. And to do nothing.
The last two days have been 1 days. On a scale of 1-7, with 1 being best and 7 being worst, they've been a refrain of 2021:
early morning sun billowing through white curtains
early morning sun billowing through white curtains
Time is a luxury if you have it and a necessity if you don’t. But you have it. Eat it.