Integrity

already in bed waiting for the warm grasp of sleepiness to pull me into peaceful slumber

I am exhausted, I should fall asleep soon

time passes

too much time passes

checks the time on my phone

it's 2:something AM.

I just can't fall asleep

Familiar? Isn't it? I have been struggling with falling asleep for years now, something that I try to treat in numerous ways, but... to little or no avail. It's almost as if more people suffer from this nowadays than in the past. In fact I am certain of that.

But why is it like this?

All stars seem to align, I've had a great week, I was physically active enough, I'm not consciously thinking sad thoughts, I am okay.

Yet, I still can't fall asleep.

Well, the underlying problem is world and its circumstances, of course, the eternal cliché that so many of us rely on, with its conundrums of things we can't really change at this moment.

The pressure of everything cracks us from the inside out. Even when we think we are okay we aren't entirely ok. We have just gotten used to coping with what life throws at us, because we ought to survive. We are managing ourselves with various degrees of success, but we're also almost always compromising on something.

Even if I didn't have worries in this life that are gnawing away at my cerebral cortex, currently I cannot change my physical circumstances and limitations.

“Oh, but there's no such thing that you cannot change, nothing is impossible, you can change anything you like!”

Miss me with that one, will you? Optimism is undeniably a good value, but the moment it slides into the territory of being overly-optimistic and overconfident it start flirting with foolishness. That's something we don't need to seek for. We are all foolish sometimes, without even intentionally trying to be like that. Foolishness inevitably finds us.

There are some things that cannot be changed.

Also things that shouldn't be changed.

But that's a different topic altogether which I may or may not touch on later in this blog.

Nevertheless, returning from my small digression, I will continue to try to adjust whatever can be adjusted to give myself a better quality sleep. I think we should all stop beating ourselves up over the things that we cannot change and focus whatever small slivers of energy we have left on things that we can change. Not letting the “unchangeable” fully out of sight either, just tossing it over to our peripheral vision, since, there may as well come a time when we will be brighter and wiser, and will find a way to make ourselves, and our lives better.

“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.” ― Homer, The Odyssey