Transcription
The hardest decision one can face every day is choosing between the version of yourself you want to be in the future or the version you are right now. Negotiating with yourself every day between resting or tiring yourself out because you have a dream and want to achieve it. Each one of us has gone through a period where they were the best version of themselves. For me, that version was in the year 2022. I would wake up every day at 6:00 AM, exercise before sunrise, and work before everyone else woke up. A version, in my opinion, was the best version I had reached in my life. A version that nothing stops. This version, unfortunately, died because the time is now 12:30 AM and I am still awake. No, no, unfortunately, this is not the first time I wake up at noon. I have been in this situation for months, to the extent that 12:00 PM has become, for me, the funeral where I mourn the six hours that were lost and during which I could have done many things. For months, perhaps years, I have been in a struggle and negotiation between the lazy person who wants to procrastinate and the person who wants to succeed and go out and conquer the world. The past period used to go exactly like this: 30 alarms set for 6:00 AM, and I would tell myself I'll sleep early to wake up and conquer the world. As soon as the alarm rings, I keep snoozing and turning off the alarms until I realize it's 11 or 12, like now. So I wake up upset. Unfortunately, because there were many tasks that should have been completed in those lost six hours, you feel like you have to cram everything into the remaining few working hours. So, I usually do nothing and tell myself, "Let's start tomorrow, God willing, and wake up early. Don't beat yourself up, and be gentle with yourself." And the day passes, and it's lost from my life. And indeed, I go to sleep at 11:00 PM, but because I woke up late, I don't get sleepy. And as usual, I know I won't wake up early. I initially thought the problem was that I was lazy, but the feeling I had wasn't laziness. You know that feeling of having a desire within you that you're trying to resist, like an addict, but there are no clear signs of addiction. I choose the bed and sleep not because I'm tired and want to sleep or lack sleep, but I feel like I'm choosing it because I'm escaping from something. What is it? I don't know. And during this period, I tried to find out what the reason is, what makes me lazy and continue sleeping. I thought, maybe you don't have a sense of real danger. Maybe because you know you won't die of hunger, so you don't get up. Or maybe you need bigger responsibilities or a bigger goal in your life. But you have so much you're supposed to do. So the question is, why don't you get up? To find the answer to this question, I first had to know the reason that prevents me from waking up every morning. Surely, there's something wrong I'm doing without realizing it. And to push myself to do this, I decided to film myself every day I fail and document my feelings at that moment until I know the reason. They say that the day begins the day before, and this means that you should prepare for the day before it begins. That's why the time is now 10:58 PM, and it's 1:00 AM. We have about seven hours to sleep and be awake, God willing. And here are the 30-40 alarms for 6:00 AM. I think we have no excuse and we will be able to wake up, God willing. So, good night. >> Guys, this can't be happening, guys. By God, what's happening is rudeness. The time is now 3:18 AM, and I still haven't slept. I just can't sleep at all, and there are still 53 minutes left until the dawn prayer. So, I am now in a situation where I can't sleep because if I sleep, I won't wake up for the dawn prayer, nor can I sleep for three hours, as there are only three hours left until I have to wake up. So, most likely, the first day is a failure, in the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. I will try to wake up, but I can't promise you. >> Good morning. The time is approximately 9:30 AM now. Of course, yesterday I spent some time scrolling on social media, as usual. There's almost no time I go on social media and then go to sleep without feeling depressed. There's no time I open TikTok or Instagram and scroll through it without coming out depressed. Besides, I have a headache. I have a headache. I woke up at 6:00 AM, turned off the alarm, and I have a headache, not that I can't sleep, but I can't get up. Good morning. Let's see what we'll do tomorrow, God willing. >> The first thing I noticed in this experiment was having my phone next to me. Having my phone next to me made it easy for me in the moment I felt I wasn't sleepy, my hand automatically went to it, with the excuse that I'll just take a quick look and then sleep. This little look costs me almost three full hours on my phone every day before I sleep. That's why I decided to repeat the same experiment, but this time I will leave the phone at the far end of the room so I don't scroll on it and fall asleep.
>> Good morning. It's 6:00 AM, and thankfully, we are awake. But this is because I stayed up all night from yesterday and didn't sleep. This is due to drinking a cup of coffee last night, forgetting that I shouldn't drink a cup of coffee after 6:00 PM if I want to sleep early. So, my day was ruined, I stayed up all night and didn't sleep, and I'm still going to sleep. So, I neither slept and managed to wake up early, nor did my day go as planned, so I can wake up and finish what I have to do. My day is completely ruined, and it's a wonderful thing, God has willed it. But let's look at the bright side. There isn't even a bright side yet. The sun hasn't risen. Good night. Of course, I don't need to tell you what time I woke up today and that the day was ruined due to a simple, silly mistake like a cup of coffee. That's why I said this time I will repeat the experiment again, and this time without a phone or coffee, hoping to wake up. But I still didn't wake up. Good morning. The time is now 11:05 AM. I was supposed to wake up at 6:00 AM, go to the gym, go for a run, finish a course I wanted to complete, and write a script I wanted to finish. There was a lot of work that was supposed to be done. Of course, all this work was not done because I, my lord, woke up at 11:00 AM. I really don't know what the end of this is. And now I don't know the reason. Yesterday, I had a migraine that made me unable to sleep, but I slept around 10:00 PM, so it's okay, I could wake up at 6:00 or 7:00 AM at the latest. This time, I couldn't solve the problem. The problem was silence. My mind hasn't been used to being in silence for a long time, and this silence unfortunately gives my mind space to work and think, and at that time, I want to sleep. It's not the time at all. What do I care about the past and the future? Focus on tomorrow, which you keep wasting every day, because you keep thinking and planning in your mind. I told myself, "Oh, Walid, I don't want to negotiate with myself. I'll play Quran on the speaker next to me so that it doesn't let my mind work and think, and at the same time, it helps me sleep." And indeed, that's what happened. But good morning. The time is now 12:00 PM. This time, I can't understand. Where is the problem? I didn't drink coffee, I didn't hold my phone at night, I slept early, and I woke up, by the way, at 7:00 AM. But I woke up, I was awake, I turned off the alarm, pulled the blanket over me, and went back to sleep. There's no excuse, there's nothing. So, I want to understand now, where is the problem? If I showed you my schedule, the schedule can't handle me sleeping this much. So there's a lot of work that I have to cram now, or I'll have to sacrifice things to... I really don't understand the situation I'm in anymore, to the point that I'm starting to lose hope in myself. I don't understand. Why? This was the thread that helped me find the problem I was making. Because on this day, I decided to have one of my siblings wake me up by force so I could finish what I had to do. If you can't keep your word and can't be your own supervisor, you have to have someone be your supervisor. And that's why I told my sister, Hoor, that if I don't wake up at 6:00 AM and find myself still sleeping, wake me up by force. And if I don't wake up with you, splash water on me. And honestly, she didn't hesitate. She didn't even wait to wake me up; she came and woke me up with water immediately. >> It's 11:15 AM. I told her yesterday, if... I came at 10:00 AM and didn't wake up, come wake me up by splashing water, by force. And she didn't hesitate. She couldn't wait to wake me up. So, what do you want to say, Hoor? I say, the wrong thing is that you wake up others to do your work for you. You should wake yourself up. >> Why are you bothering us with you? You want to wake up, wake up. You don't want to wake up, don't bother us. What do we care? You know the saying, "His secret is placed in the weakest of his creation." I realized after Hoor's words that having an external factor like Hoor waking me up forces me to wake up. If I had an important appointment, work at an office, or a flight, I would adhere to it. I can adhere to appointments related to people, but I can't adhere to appointments related to myself. Because the problem isn't about commitment; you know how to commit. I sat and thought and analyzed until I knew the cause of the problem. Due to the repetition of the idea that every day the alarm rings and you don't get up, my brain got used to resting from the tasks I give myself, like, "Come on, it's not the first time we've failed." What will happen? In simple terms, my brain started to get used to the idea that as long as there's no supervisor, as long as you're free, it's okay, no problem. And when the supervisor appears, and the supervisor has come, and there's someone supervising you and you're responsible to them, my brain immediately executes what it's supposed to do. So the question is, why don't you get up and do what you want? And I noticed something else: the sheer number of tasks I used to set for myself every day, and due to the pressure of tasks and the accumulation of tasks under the name of productivity, made me reluctant to even start. I told myself, "What if you try to do just one thing?" Just wake up. Don't worry about what you'll do all day. Just wake up, and when you wake up, we'll arrange the rest of the tasks. For example, try to trick your mind and tell yourself you'll wake up to drink a cup of coffee or go for a run. Just one task. I don't want anything else. So, I said, let's try. Good morning. It's 6:00 AM, and finally, we woke up early. Finally, I was starting to lose hope. I was starting to feel like I was done. Although this was my normal before, you know, but that was during the prime days. Now, I had lost hope of waking up at 6:00 AM, and thankfully, I woke up. No phone, no overthinking, no coffee. Thank God, we avoided all the mistakes. I feel like I need to celebrate that I want to go for a run in the street, you know? Yes, the idea of waking up in the morning is a great blessing from God. By God, we truly don't appreciate it. No one is awake in the morning. You are alone in the world. With so much energy, I'm thinking of going to the gym. Yes, for the first time in a long time, I feel awake. I feel like I know, I have energy, I have activity, I have the word vitality. I feel this vitality. The idea that 12:00 PM kills your day. The morning is truly different. The idea of God's light entering your room, the world is quiet, everyone is asleep, no disturbance. This alone makes you feel that time has a strange blessing. So, it's still 7:00 AM, and after all this I've done, there's a feeling that you are close to God. Don't ask me why. It has nothing to do with it, but you feel that as soon as you wake up in the morning, you feel that the day has a blessing, and you feel close to God. On the contrary, on days when you wake up late, you feel upset and annoyed. There's a lot of noise in your head and many thoughts you want to finish, so you feel like you don't have time to say things like morning supplications. How will you say them, and why will you say them? Wake up at 3:00 PM and tell me morning supplications. You're heading into evening supplications. The idea for me is that you can repeat this every day. It's about consistency, not just one day and then going back to the same routine and everything you do. So, the idea of continuing this, honestly, I still don't know its extent, and I will find out in the coming period, God willing. But what I feel now is worth trying every day to wake up early. For the first time in a long time, I feel like Walid is still alive. Can you imagine that after all this exhaustion, it's still 8:15 AM? Can you imagine? I went for a run, went to the gym, exercised, came back, had breakfast, took a shower, and all this, and it's still 8:15 AM. The day is just starting. What I understood from this experiment is that laziness is a desire like any other desire. When you indulge in it, you feel guilt. That's why you have to resist it. And desires are resisted by staying away from things that weaken you towards them. Unfortunately, your subconscious mind is smarter than you. Every time you tell yourself you'll do something and don't do it, it will stop believing you. That's why you have to keep your word to yourself. Because in the end, the image your mind believes about you is not the image people see, but the image you know about yourself. When no one is watching, your mind can commit well. When you have a flight appointment, but will you be able to commit when the same flight appointment is the time for the dawn prayer? Will you be able to commit to waking up every day and going to the gym? Will you be able to commit to working or studying every day when the only supervisor is yourself? That's why try to ask yourself, who are you really when there's no one supervising you or when no one is watching you? Don't forget that in the end, there is a supervisor greater than all of this, and that is God, and He will ask you about your life and how you spent it. And there is another supervisor waiting for you to reach the best version of yourself, and that is your future self. That's why don't forget to love yourself.