A time of uncontrollability and stealth

The night is a comforting time for many. It’s a time to wind down, a time to entertain, and a time to prepare for a night of restful sleep. The night is like a dark blanket that wraps one in a sense of security and fatigue. I wish that I could see the night in the same light. However, with the health crisis going on in our world, and having some extra time on my hands, I struggle to shut my mind from stressors after the sun sets. 

I’ve written about having uncontrolled thoughts at night before. My mind seems to work up endlessly pessimistic thoughts in the evening, even when I’m emotionally stable during the day. These mental panics occur most frequently when I have too much time on my hands. The side of me that’s addicted to the drug of busyness feels deprived. It yearns for productivity and the sense of having learned something new when the sun sets and in order to be heard, it causes a rush of 9:00 PM adrenaline that keeps me an extra hour on my laptop. 

At night, I wonder whether I’m doing enough, whether I’ve done enough. I ask myself, have I learned anything new today? I question whether everything I’m doing is really going to help me become the fictitious person I’ve idolized. I grow concerned that life is not going to work out. I worry whether I’ve been productive enough. I try to calculate the hours that I spent doing everything and how much time I’ve wasted. I worry about what I need to do in the upcoming weeks to prepare for XYZ. Overall, I find myself consumed in a lot of questions and concerns that are beyond my control. Perhaps that’s why these thoughts emerge at night, a time of uncontrollability and stealth. 

The night for me up until this point has indicated the end of another day and the end of another opportunity to be productive, learn something new, and do something meaningful. This is why I dislike the ends of the day. Perhaps this is also a wake-up call to accept being comfortable with being uncomfortable. I was reading about this earlier this week in Olivia Fox Cabane’s The Charisma Myth. In fact, being comfortable with being uncomfortable is what allows one to project more kindness and warmth by overlooking the nitty-gritty details and emotions that don’t go our way. At heart, it allows us to be more flexible with ourselves and our own shortcomings without compromising our ability to interact warmly with others. 

I’d like to end with a quote from Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, which caught my attention because of its immediate relatability to my recent experiences with wandering thoughts at night. I read this quote this past week and it stuck with me immensely. 

“It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night is it another thing” -Ernest Hemingway “The Sun Also Rises”