Mornings, part 2

I have a lot of feelings about mornings.  Quite a lot.  I've written about my struggle to overcome the morning grumps, and this has actually been a point of great discussion between me and, well, pretty much everyone I've ever met.

A friend recently said to me, "It seems to me that you're exercised about not being grumpy in the mornings...  but you really don't get exercised about it until the afternoon."  Ouch.  Ouch and that's hilarious.  And also, I maintain that that's not true, in spite of the hilarity of it.

But really, for almost a year now, I've started work at 7:00 am.  More than anything else, it's forced me to get up and BE up in the mornings.  It was one thing back in the day to roll out of bed, wordlessly skulk to the gym, and come home an hour and half later having spoken to not a soul.  It's another thing to get up much too early and have to interact in a meaningful way with people, and to try to not be the one crying.  (It's a daycare.  At 7:00 am.  Someone is always crying.)

But, my distaste of mornings aside, here's a quote I found that I liked that I feel like has a particular significance for my daily morning struggle bus.

We are influenced by our personality, but we are not controlled by it.

Bros.  Brothers.  Brethren.  That's a good point.  It's a fact about me that I don't like mornings.  That's just part of my personality.  But so what?  That doesn't give me free license to breathe fire upon those that happen to be in the same sphere as me in the mornings.  It just means that, knowing this, I have to manage my state of constant drowse.  Maybe I go for a run first thing.  Maybe I drink coffee.  Or Mountain Dew.  Or basically anything with caffeine.  And mostly I just keep repeating the same things I trained myself to say years ago.

This is the day that the Lord hath made.  I will be glad and rejoice in it.

Lord, help me to have a good day.

Lord, help me to do everything today to the best of my abilities.