I set my alarm clock last night.  This morning, it did as it was told and was punished for it, slapped like the Thanksgiving turkey before it meets the roasting pan.  I should probably feel bad about my actions, but I don't.  My alarm clock and I have an understanding, however dysfunctional. 

For years, I've set an alarm clock to outsource that part of my brain to a machine, freeing me to sleep deeply.  Trusting that it will do as designed, I can rest.  Each night I pre-decide what time I want to -- scratch that, need to -- wake up in order to conquer the world.  I thoughtfully do math accounting for traffic, others I'm responsible to feed and the wind speed to arrive at a comfortable enough decision. I add in the meditation and quiet time and workout and back it up a healthy amount.  Resting peacefully, the clock chirps its infernal call and I hit the snooze, negating all of the math I'd done the night before.  After two more love taps on my digital brain, I finally get moving, grumpy at how little time I have left to prepare for the day (and angry at myself for another missed opportunity to step closer to the man I want to be).

But the decisions are mine: to both set it and to slap it.  

The word decide comes from the Latin, cid or cis meaning 'kill.'  It's where we get words like 'fungicide' and 'insecticide' (killing fungus and insects, respectively).  When we decide, we kill all the other options.  When we decide on pizza, there's no more discussion about tacos or pho for today. 

We are the accumulation of our decisions.

Setting the alarm clock is a pre-decision based the kind of man I want to be.  I want to be a man that exercises, meditates and writes with conviction, so I decide what it will take (in the form of morning hours) to become that person and rest well knowing I'm growing closer to that man.  And yet, at 5:15, my pre-decision is met with a foggy opportunity for another decision: do I honor my pre-decision or do I choose this moment.  Today, I chose the moment, taking my cognitive dissonance out on my machine.  I'm convinced this is why people wake up grumpy: the consequence of last night's decisions meeting today's opportunities. The tension between the two lies squarely with me, not my alarm clock. 

The snooze button should be reprogrammed with a motivational speech you give yourself, projecting an image of possible for blurry eyes.  

And yet, when the pre-decision is met with the moment, the opportunity exists to reevaluate, listen and honor the moment: what changed, what's new, what's different?  This morning, I chose to turn off my alarm (gently, I might add). I am tired due to a lot of activities, recalibrating due to significant and abrupt dietary changes and I had the calendar to be flexible. I choose the consequence of less productivity to honor a need for more sleep. 

Yet I wondered: is this decision to honor what my body needs or an excuse to be lazy?  This is a question only I can answer.  Last night, I wanted to be a man that wakes early and this morning I wanted to sleep more than I wanted to meditate (or perhaps I was meditating laterally with my eyes closed.  Maybe?).  So, which do I want more: to be fit or rest well? I want both. So I must choose again and again, constantly reminding myself of that which I want more deeply and resting in that (see what I did there).

What do you want?  What do you want more than that?  And more than that?  What's it take to be that man?  Be that man.