Today was a wakeup call: “Travis! You aren’t getting nearly enough sleep! You need to get serious about going to bed between 10 and 10:30.” On this particular occasion, I had stayed up about an hour past my bedtime to see some friends. I paid hard for it, sleeping some 10 hours and waking up…
Monthly Archives: June 2010
Early Rising + 2 Hours of Meditation: Days 24 & 25 of 30
Two awesome days of zafu meditation have ensued since I last updated, and that’s been a really great thing. I’ve nailed my early rising routine on both occasions, the only caveat being that after day 24′s meditation…. I promptly got back in bed and caught a few more hours of shut-eye. Oops! At least my…
Early Rising + 2 Hours of Meditation: Days 23 of 30
Day 23 went the way of a recurring issue I’ve been having: I nail the meditation, but am thrown off the early rising by various issues. Today, the problem was technological- some kind of automatic update threw off my alarm, and I didn’t come to until 8 (instead of the intended 5:30). That was particularly…
Early Rising + 2 Hours of Meditation: Days 21 & 22 of 30
Another pair of good and bad days in my quest for habit reinvention, showcasing the immense difficulty in adopting such a rigorous habit that, as my previous posts have demonstrated, is often in conflict with other events and experiences in my life. Day 21 was excellent. I traveled down to CT to visit a friend…
Early Rising + 2 Hours of Meditation: Days 19 & 20 of 30
Another pair of interesting days. On day 19, I had easily my best meditation session yet. I had great success meditating in the “zafu” position, cobbling together my own version of this meditation cushion. I also handled all the pre-meditation steps very well. So cheers to that. Today, however (day 20), I had trouble waking…
Early Rising + 2 Hours of Meditation: Days 16,17 & 18 of 30
The last three days of this experiment have been a confounding blur! Friday went well and according to plan, although I bumped up against the lack-of-sleep issue I’ve been having. However, Friday night I went down with two friends into Boston (not for music this time, I’m afraid) to visit some other friends, resulting in…
Early Rising + 2 Hours of Meditation: Day 15 of 30
Halfway there, baby! I have to say, I’m truly amazed at the drastic change in behavior I’ve been able to achieve in the last 15 days. This definitely goes on record as the most astounding habit change I’ve ever made. This process is far from over, however. My biggest challenge is to improve the quality,…
Early Rising + 2 Hours of Meditation: Days 12, 13, and 14 of 30
I am somewhat astounded to say that over the past three days of this habit-building period, I’ve had continued success in a way that I can’t really fathom. After stalling on day 11, I quickly got back into my rhythm of waking up between 6AM and 5:30AM, and have continued to do so with complete…
From Foolish to 4.0: 5 Invaluable Lessons Learned From College
I pushed away from my desk and stood up with a smile. I was in disbelief- a 4.0? That had never happened before. And yet there it was, my final semester GPA staring back at me from the silver screen. That was three weeks ago, just days before I walked across the stage of SPAC…
Early Rising + 2 Hours of Meditation: Day 11 of 30
What a hectic weekend! I’m afraid that a deadly combo of unanticipated work (I’m a freelance writer for the summer- more on that in a later post) and family obligations led me off the path today, as I woke up well beyond my wakeup time and failed to get 2 hours of meditation. It’s not…