Laying in bed one night I had an epiphany. All of my best thinking seems to be done in bed at night. Much to my desire to sleep’s disgust. I have taken to writing my thoughts down in a notebook or typing them into the notes section on my Iphone. It certainly makes for better sleep and I remember my awesome ideas the next morning.
Every night when I go to bed, I have plans to conquer the world the next day. Suffice to say that I am definitely a night owl and am at my best and horribly worst in the late hours of the night. I do my best writing and thinking after 10pm. It’s not always positive and it’s not always productive. Which is why I feel the need to write things down. I need to get them out of my head.
The epiphany I had laying in bed one night was about perfection. Perfection is something I think about a lot. It’s a source of guilt for me, as I am sure it is for a lot of people. Always striving for that elusive perfection. Then I got to thinking, when you get to the state of perfection..what then? What comes when you reach the peak?
Then it hit me. We shouldn’t be striving for perfection, we should be striving to learn from our journey. Perfection means that we have reached our destination, we stop moving. Imagine going through life and not learning because well you think you have learnt all there is to learn. Reaching perfection means that we don’t feel the need to strive anymore. It is kind of an anti climax. Perfection is never really what we envision it to be.
I hope that I never reach perfection. That I am never to the point where I feel there is nothing new to learn. I hope that I will always be hungry for new knowledge. I hope that I will always be asking questions, looking for the information to satisfy the desire to learn. I hope that it is something that we don’t lose as each generation passes. With so much at our fingertips now, I hope that it’s not taken for granted.
When I’m in a creative phase I have (manic) spurts where I am up and buzzing at 2 or 3am. The house is quiet, there are no other distractions demanding my attention and my guilt trip that I “should be doing something else” can be temporarily laid aside. I love those times, but they aren’t sustainable 🙁
I am always learning new information about the world and about myself, and I’m often surprised by those late night epiphanies .
xx
They are great but I agree that they aren’t sustainable. I often say to my partner that any *normal* business who is open at all hours would probably make just as much money in the middle of the night as they would during the day lol.
I think I almost struggle a bit the other way. I like to read in bed at night and I’ve started thinking about how I only have a finite number of nights left to do this and so I can only read a finite number of books and therefore learn a finite number of things before it’s curtains for me, basically. I have to accept that I can’t learn everything! I will probably die before I’ve learned 3 languages and mastered the history of the French Revolution and the American Civil war (you get the point). And that’s ok. At least I hope it’s ok. lol x
That’s the beauty of it, we will never know everything so life will always be able learning. I think it would be quite a boring existence if we truly knew everything there ever was to know.
Well said Tegan, that is bloody true! I just strive to get through each day without being a total mole to everyone around me, without eating the house out of food and drinking more than I should! I like the idea of jotting down my thoughts at night, might make me sleep better 🙂 xx
haha mole!
My view of perfection (of life) is comfort (and by comfort I really mean my household running efficiently with little effort or stress), in which I do hope to one day obtain. But my ‘perfection’ does not include stopping at any point, or settling for one way of things. My envision of perfection for my life is to have a sort of routine of my household which enables it to run efficiently, yet flexible and in no way perfect at all. You know, like to clean the bathroom once a week, but not necessarily perfectly as different parts of it will get done well each Tuesday. Those sort of things that when routine, make my life easier and somewhat effortless that I have more energy and motivation to spend on the things that matter in my life. My children, and having fun with them. I guess I don’t really strive for perfection after reading this, but this is what I strive for.
That is one of my goals too. I managed to somewhat come close when I was doing the Organised Housewife’s 20 day challenge and it felt good to have a clean, clutter free house. I need direction though and as you know, I’m a list person so I really like to write down what I have to do in nice neat little boxes and lists.
I think I’m fortunate in that perfectionism isn’t one of my traits. I like to do things to m best but having said that I can enjoy that without concern that things aren’t exactly ‘ just so’ . I have seen perfectionists at close range in my friendship circles and family and in someways I find I a little irritating . It gets in the way sometimes with throwing caution to the wind and just being. But, we are all different and tts what makes us more interesting to each other.
I too am a night owl but I’m a morning person too. Some might call me an insomniac haha…but I manage easy on 5 – 6 hours most nights .Some are less and I get by. I kinda feel that when all the essential things re done I still want time to myself and sleeping just doesn’t cut it 🙂
I used to be like that..but sadly I need my sleep a lot more lately. I get the feeling of still wanting to do ‘non house stuff’ once the house is asleep and that’s probably a lot of my issue with not getting to sleep early.
The wee hours of the morning are great for epiphanies – and even better if you remember them once your day gets busy later on. I agree with you. There is no point in life when you suddenly think ‘this is it – everything is perfect’ because it all just keeps on changing. The best thing we can do is learn and strive towards progressive goals. And then change those goals…
The *notes* on my phone is filled with late night epiphanies so that I don’t forget what I have thought. I try to make the notes with as much detail as possible so I can try to replicate my train of thought.
Annoyingly, I work much better in the wee-hours than I do at any other time of day.
I’ve learned that I have to force myself to write lists in order to complete tasks during the day, nightmare.
But the fun thing is, I’m a teacher, so I’m constantly telling my students to manage their time properly and prepare well… little do they know that I’m frantically marking their work with a glass of wine the night before they are due back
Let’s hope none of your students read this Alex lol!
Like a true Gemini, I am a lifelong learner. I can rattle of a list of qualifications and books read that tend to be a little over the top. I am like you, love learning and reading and basically trying to be a better person tomorrow than I was today. Oh…I’m a night owl as well. Assignments have always been done into the wee small hours of the mornings 😉
It used to piss off my school friends when I would leave a school assignment until the last minute and manage to write a pretty decent piece of work. 90% of my blog posts are written at night (I usually schedule them for the next day).
I’m a big procrastinator. Big. I work best when everything else is done; the ironing, the kitchen, the toys picked up. When everything is ‘done’, I can finally ‘work’.
As for blogging, I can do that whenever the mood strikes. The kitchen and toys can wait.
Perfection is over-rated.