The phone keeps shouting. “It is time to get up now. Turn your brain back on.” The time to wake up, the time to prepare for a business trip, the time reminding me of appointments, the time alerting me to key project schedules all became mixed together, and the second half of 2024 passed with me no longer knowing why the alarm was ringing at that hour. Since I am the type whose eyes open on their own after five hours of sleep, or wakes at 5 a.m. or 7 a.m., I was often already awake before the alarm rang. In daily life, I was busy switching alarms off without even noticing them.
Across twenty-four hours, how much time was truly, consciously, or vividly alive? How much real time was there in which I read, meditated, organised my thoughts before sleep, and in stillness felt gratitude and reflected on myself?
I delete the whole list of alarms, filled as it was with times for mechanically getting ready so as not to be late for something. For the time being, I will not easily add alarms. There were many unnecessary alarms. Some truly necessary alarms were missing, too.
I will spend an alarm-free December and try to revive my sense of time.
May my thoughts be a small source of strength on your sustainable path: SUSTAINER, Seo Uk