Rising Early Every Day

Years before Christ was born, the great Greek philosopher Aristotle said that "it is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth and wisdom."

Many, many years later, the famous American statesman Benjamin Franklin quipped, "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."

Those insightful quotes from Aristotle and Benjamin Franklin are what have made me want to be an early riser. I even produced in 2015 a hymn in which I asked God to help me get out of bed early every day. Here's how I sang it:

Help me God to get out of bed,
Early every day of my life,
Even when events of yesterday,
Might have stressed, pained or depressed me.

Well, I have always aspired to be an early riser since 2008 when I was an engineering student at JKUAT. I still remember how I tried to get out of bed at 4:30 a.m., do some physical exercises and then study the Bible which I was reading from cover-to-cover like a novel.

But guess what! After about a week of rising early, I fizzled out and began staying in bed after sunrise. That marked the beginning of my battle with the sin called oversleeping.

My kid brother Symo noted how I struggled to get out of bed when we stayed together here at home in the years 2014 and 2015. One morning when he found me asleep, he played on his laptop a Swahili song that asked people to get out of bed and go to work. He played that song over and over again till I lost my desire to sleep.

I still struggle with oversleeping. Today for instance, I couldn't resist the temptation to stay in between the sheets after my phone alarm rang at 5:30 a.m. The chilly and rainy weather was what made the temptation irresistible.

It seems most people don't struggle to get out of bed like I do because on those mornings when I rise early and head to my hometown of Kiserian, I see folks driving on the road and opening up their businesses. And they do so even when it is chilly and raining.

Despite my inability to wake up early in the morning consistently since 2008, I haven't given up on my goal to be an early riser. So I have resolved to always get out of bed before dawn, come rain or shine.

This time, I will be focusing on rising early the next morning. Not the next one week or the next 21 days but just the next morning. Hopefully when the mornings accumulate to 21 days, I will have developed the habit of getting up before daybreak.

And why do I want to be an early riser? Because the Bible, which is my code of conduct, admonishes us not to love sleep. It warns those who love sleep that they will come to poverty and be clad in rags. What's worse, their houses will leak when the rafters sag.

I also desire to be an early riser since I'd like to marry the Proverbs-31 kind of a lady. You see, the book of Proverbs says in Chapter 31 that the wife of noble character rises while it is still dark. And which noble woman would want to marry a sloth like me?

My beloved reader, I urge you to join me in this endeavor of rising early every day if you aren't doing so already. As I heard someone say on Facebook, we can't sleep like we are competing with the dead and expect to make it in the world of the living. We have to be early risers if we are to attain the dreams in our hearts.

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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story on rising early every day, you might also enjoy another one on "Developing Good Sleeping Habits" which I wrote two years ago. Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.