Thought Picnic: Making days matter

Losing the snooze

Each day appears to be unstructured without the routine that demands the alarm rings in the morning. Not that when the alarm stirs you out of slumber you jump out of bed that the first sound. For some reason or the other, some sociology or psychology when into electronic alarm clock design, it is called the snooze button.

That button you press once to silence the alarm, originally for about 10 minutes, but now, there is a variable duration for which you want the snooze to last before the next alarm strain sting your eardrums into an ambulatory response. Mine is set to 7 minutes, whilst the first alarm time is set irregularly rather than to exactly the quarter points of the clock at 00, 15, 30, or 45 minutes past the hour.

Living free of it

My alarm is musical, never monotonal and I have been conditioned to knowing that the music is an alarm rather than my radio playing back an obscure classical composition of dubious provenance. Yet, in reality, my life is not as regulated by alarm clocks except in uniquely exceptional situations, I would probably be awake before the alarm goes off then wonder if there is enough time for a power nap to the time of the alarm.

When I have abused the snooze button, I would have probably preferred to have a mallet to smash the clock to smithereens, but the said clock is usually my mobile phone, as so, I would hate to be as destructive as sudden inclination might aspire me to.

Do the day well

As to what to do with the day, you need to find purpose and achievement, the direction that brings benefit. From the poem Today, by Thomas Carlyle, which I have known more as a hymn, my spirit demands, “Think wilt thou let it slip useless away.” For each that that comes, there is much to learn, formally and informally, there is a lot to understand better, there is the possibility of the creative that we rarely tap as much as should be done, for the satisfaction is rarely in any tangible reward, so we let it slide.

The mind cannot idle without function and application, we rise to deploy thought, deed, talent and resourcefulness to things that matter, to change things for the better, in person, in event, or in ideas, it could be in all those things at the same time. A day must bring a new kind of fulfilment, whether it can be measured by others is beside the point. You know that by the time the day has become part of the eternity past, you have left a mark, not to regret the one that follows on.