Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jpmoyn 2899 days ago
I think there is some moral notion ingrained in me that staying up late is just a bad thing, and being up early is a good thing. It feels so satisfying waking up really early and having a peaceful morning alone, before the hustle and bustle of the day begins. I see the parallel you draw to late night, but it just seems less wholesome to me for some reason.
1 comments

Yup, I hope you and others who share your way introspect as to why it seems that way, other than just because that's the social conditioning we receive.

Here are some (strawman?) arguments that support your view, but are they actually justified/true/not-true-for-staying-up-instead?

- it takes effort to build a habit of waking up early, therefore it's good

- the hardest workers i know wake up early, it must be integral to why they're productive

- college kids stay up late, and college kids lack discipline

- being out when the sun is up is healthy for you, so sleeping through sunlight is bad for you

I feel like if businesses operated from 12pm-12am instead of 9am-9pm, all these would be flipped in favor of staying up late =/

Those are some good arguments, though from my perspective it seems like it could be simpler.

For one, just like you can't get up early, some of us can't sleep in. Takes no effort for me to build up a habit of waking up early, my body just likes to wake up at 4:30AM. I go to bed relatively early because I'm going to be awake at 4:30AM either way so I might as well try to make a full night of sleep happen.

Other than that, I think there might be a bit of moral judgement going on, but I think it's just that the business day starts at 8:00AM and sleeping past that looks like lazy or luxury. One thing I like about working in tech is that there is less judgement there -- hell, if anything, I get more flack for waking up at the crack of dawn than my coworkers who get into the office at 10:30AM or 11:00. I'm not the only guy who gets into the office early but on my team I'm in the minority.

I feel like if that schedule happened what other countries do as a siesta would become a much longer primary sleep block, maybe broken up by some private time around sunset before a pre-work nap.
Ha! As an early bird, I am often frustrated to have to wait until 9 or even 10 to get errands done!