How to get up in the mornings? The struggle to get out of bed in the morning is a struggle between two worlds: the world of the day, with all its tasks, hopes, and needs; and the world of night, with its imagination, strangeness, and freedom.
On the side of ‘day consciousness’ we have the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, who wrote to himself in his personal diary: “In the morning when you don’t want to get out of bed, remember: I am rising to the work of a human being. Why am I unhappy if I am going to do the things for which I exist? Or have I been made for this – to lie in the bedclothes and keep myself warm?”
On the side of ‘night’ we have the psychotherapist Carl Jung: “Knowing your own darkness is the best way to deal with the darkness in other people. One becomes enlightened by making the darkness conscious. The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely. Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
It’s okay to get up slowly sometimes; to let your dreams linger in the morning and to write them down and think about them. We shouldn’t always push away the things of the night in favor of the business of the day.
Image: Netherlands, 2020, Ilse Stokking
Jack Fuller
Jack is a depth therapist and the founder of Archive. He has a doctorate in theology from Oxford University and a degree in neuroscience from Melbourne University. He is the co-author of The Imagination Machine (Harvard Business Press, 2022)