Too ambitions for your own good? Is there even such a thing? Having ambitions is surely desirable character trait, but at what point does being ambitions become detrimental to well-being? This is something I’ve been pondering lately as I find myself frequently choosing passion over sleep health.
According to the data from my Apple Health app, I average about 6 hours a night which isn’t bad, but it’s also not good, especially if I want to slim down. I can function adequately at 6 hours a night, but I’d function optimally with 8 hours of sleep. I’m shooting for 7 hours as a happy medium.
It’s nearly 12:30 am on a Friday night (or Saturday morning if you want to get technical) and here I am at a daily crossroad I encounter at the end of everyday… to go to sleep now, or to go to sleep later. On one hand, my body feels very tired. My eyelids, in particular, feel heavy. On the other than, there’s so much I want to do that I didn’t get to do. I had every intention, but then I prioritized spending quality time with my partner before he goes to bed.
My partner recently brought to my attention that perhaps what keeps me up at night is the motivation to prove everyone wrong. I impulsively wanted to say Noooo! in a really defensive tone as I started to deny this possibility by sharing how what keeps me up at night is the desire to achieve. It’s like an addiction. Then I realized that my reaction indicated there may very well be a subconscious motivation I was never really aware of until he played devil’s advocate for me as I recounted a conversation I had earlier in the week with a therapist I see for myself to help prevent burnout.
I just remembered one of the things I had intended to do since yesterday and never got around to, so now I am going to do it now because the deadline is tomorrow, or more like today. Thanks for reading!
4/14/2023 Update: I’ve finally managed to average 7 hours of sleep for the last two weeks! It took a while to condition myself to go to bed earlier.
