How to Get Past Morning

The morning is an important time. Some say it is the most important part of the day. When you wake up, do your chores, eat breakfast, and there are no problems, then you are on the trajectory for a wonderful day.

A good morning is a great thing, and a single bad morning has the potential to ruin an entire week. Some say the morning always sets the tone for the rest of the day. If we are grumpy in the morning, then we will be grumpy in the afternoon, and continue to be grumpy well into the night.

I disagree with this. Sure, a bad morning can spawn a terrible day. But not always. After all, if the future of all things is truly determined by their starting conditions then we would live in a very different world indeed.

In the beginning Earth was a very different place. It’s morning consisted of molten rock, noxious gasses, and deadly radiation.

There was no water, no land, and no atmosphere. The moon had yet to be formed. If earth had been locked into its starting condition there is no telling what, if anything, would have developed. The planet had a very difficult start. But after a while things settled down, and Earth became a nice, well-adjusted planet. The Sun was so proud.

The beginning of the Earth did not determine the planet’s entire future. Just like the starting condition of the universe did not completely set the stage for eternity.

At the beginning of time a molten planet like the young Earth could not have existed. In fact, nothing we are familiar with could have existed, because there was no matter. There were no atoms, or even sub-atomic particles. Everything that is and ever will be just kind of floated around in a space so small, and a state so basic, that we can barely imagine it.

The planet we live on, and the universe it exists in both had turbulent, alien origins. And yet things turned around and changed into everything we are familiar with. Starting conditions can tell us a lot, but they aren’t Nostradamus.

Civilizations may provide the best illustration of this point. Rome started out as a republic, and ended as an empire. The United States spent its infant years believing it was perfectly acceptable to own other people, as long as they were a different color. And it was ok to ignore huge swaths of the population because their genitals were a little confusing.

Anything can change. Bad attitudes can be turned around. And they can also be turned back. The idea that we are locked into a path early on is a popular one. And it upsets me.

Sometimes it takes some time to get going. We are not always ourselves in the beginning.

In many ways people are like computers. Waking up in the morning is like a cold boot-up. There are all the little programs that have to get going, and if you rush that process the whole thing freezes up.

For me, the coping/attitude application is one of the last to start up. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the last app to insatalled, or something. I can probably change this, but I don’t know how, and human tech support is terrible.

Because the attitude app takes so long, I am sometimes grumpy, irritable, and a bit dramatic in the morning. But once all my programs are running, everything is fine. A bad morning is not an omen of a bad day.

In fact, sometimes bad mornings lead to good, or at least tolerable days. There is nothing like waking up and immediately airing grievances. Annoyance is like pee. Its good to start out with an empty bladder.

And a tolerable day can lead to a good night.