THE MORNING AFTER

I thought I had enough sleep last night, but maybe not. The reason I think this is that I find myself thinking about how life’s best decisions are probably not made when we haven’t had enough sleep.

I am thinking about NIGHT-OWL’S, the ALL-NIGHTER but especially about THE MORNING AFTER.

I have to belatedly concede and accept that the ALL-NIGHTER is probably not conducive or effective either to reasonable communication or problem solving.

It almost doesn’t matter whether you are up all night cramming for final exams, reading, writing, partying or texting your many friends, at home or around the world in other time zones. You can’t and won’t be operating at your optimum capacity, whatever you think.

We all know that it leaves you with ‘bags’ under your eyes and looking tired. However, the most long lasting effect is likely a lot of new Baggage which might be considered the modern take on ‘THE MORNING AFTER’.

Earlier today I was thinking about how years ago I saved a friend from really horrible humiliation by convincing her to put the really self-abasing letter, she felt she HAD TO WRITE into a drawer for the weekend before even considering sending it. 

In those days (yes some of us are still around to remember them) the Post Office (and Banks also) didn’t work on weekends. You may not believe it, but ATM’s were not invented yet either. Imagine!

Anyway, since nothing was going anywhere till after the weekend, I convinced her to reread this awful thing and then send it, if she still really needed to, after she had time to reread and rethink it. Not congratulating myself too much, but a time came, years later when she told me that, thankfully, it had never been sent. Some of us are not so lucky.

As I mentioned earlier today, the days without service, unfortunately are gone. Today we are able to communicate 24/7. I say unfortunately because I can only imagine some of the stuff being said, and sent, in the middle of the night. Since I am often awake, I know whereof I speak. You probably do too.

THE MORNING AFTER takes on a whole new meaning when you hazily remember (and unfortunately have proof) that last night you thought it was a really good idea to TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW…WHAT YOU REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT THEM. You also had to tell everyone you knew where you were at 4 a.m. and ‘share’ what you were doing. Too bad! Too late now!

I guess you can hope that they get so many messages that they have to delete them unread…OR ELSE, you are probably in big trouble with some, or maybe all, of your Mailing List…or whoever is left that will ever bother to speak to you again. After all, they and YouTube have your ‘Selfies’ to prove it.

Welcome to the convenience of today’s world. Too bad we can engage our fingers and devices BEFORE we can engage our Brains. But there you have it.

I’d suggest each of us learn what we are capable of while we are still young enough to not doing anything we might regret for the rest of our lives.

  

Once you know your limitations, you may have a better idea of what you might do to yourself, or others, when you are temporarily insane from sleep deprivation or artificially buoyed up and ready to take on the world.

You might begin by treating anything you use to communicate your inspirations as you would a loaded Gun. It is almost as bad. In fact, in some ways it might be worse because you will probably still be alive in the morning to face the consequences. 

It isn’t your imagination. The 'Whole World' actually does have your words and photos in front of them in their face.

I won’t say KNOCK YOURSELF OUT because you already might have. Just take a minute to figure out how you might actually put the brakes on THE REAL ME next time. Remembering the inevitable pain of the MORNING AFTER just might help a bit.