Becoming the person I hate

One day last June, I found myself wide awake before 6 a.m.(!) I felt totally refreshed and… decided to go for a run.(!!)

I have been a famously Bad Morning Person. My friend and former neighbor Mike (handsome, talented — check out his writing!) once wrote a poem about the sounds in our old apartment building as its residents headed off to work each morning. The poem ended with his description of my hair dryer turning on.

But that early morning last year, I did a little jog and it was beautiful and I stopped to take a photo of a mural and birds were singing (I assume they were. I probably had “Morris Brown” by Outkast cranked up in my headphones). I got home and had time to kick back and read a bit while I drank coffee. The typical alternative is that I would wake up frantically, run the dog out, and faceplant into my laptop.

(My cousin’s wife was actually staying with me the morning this happened. I was worried that I would come across as being all naturally bright-eyed in the morning, but I gave no such impression: I poured her a big cup of weak, room-temperature coffee because I forgot to actually boil the water before adding it to the French press. No amount of morning zest can help the three-legged hamster that handles my executive functioning.)

In the year since, I’ve become something just short of a certifiable morning person. I do, begrudgingly, see the benefits of getting a bunch of your little activities done before you have to start working. Did you know that you can do your little burpees and shower before facing your boss? Or that grocery stores are ghost towns at 7 a.m.? Did you know there is nothing stopping you from doing a small craft first thing instead of replying-all? Turns out that life’s little exhaustions can wait for you to balance four blueberries on the dog’s snout.

Once upon a time, seeing people going on a run at the crack of dawn made me want to sneak into their homes at night to shave their heads, spit in their protein powder, and shred their copies of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. These early birds must go to bed at like 7 p.m. anyhow, I could bully them on my way out for the evening.

I might be teetering on the edge of becoming an early-ish riser, but I do not care for anyone who seemingly makes it their whole personality: Because there is something so obnoxiously virtuous about being a self-satisfied morning person.

A year before my new reality set in, Time reported on a study that found “people who woke up earlier tended to score higher on all dimensions of religiosity, leading them to conclude that being religious could help explain why early risers are more conscientious and more satisfied overall.” (OK, what time do you vote?) The study article, published in PLOS One, was actually titled “Godless owls, devout larks.” (The Tootsie Pop owl asking how many licks to get to the truth?)

The Time piece went on to acknowledge the moral superiority we grant morning people — particularly in America, where we can’t get enough of championing industry and hard work while we get Flamin’ Hot Cheeto dust on our toilet paper deliveries. The article quoted then-University of Connecticut PhD student Declan Gilmer: “If someone gets up at 6 a.m., and they show up at work early, they’re viewed potentially as more committed.”

It makes me think of a certain executive at an old job. I’d roll in close to 10 a.m. and he’d make a big stink about greeting me loudly by name, as though it were some public shaming that I didn’t get there at 7:45 in the morning. (I wore some pretty loud shoes for someone trying to slink in unnoticed.) Meanwhile, I’d stay late to finish production, never missed a deadline, and understood that nothing about my job necessitated an early start: I wasn’t relieving anyone from the line at the email factory. I’m confident this exec helped choose which employees (myself included) were laid off during the pandemic after the PPP loans ran out. Conscientious!

I took an informal poll of two individuals I do think are angels, who regularly manage emotionally unhinged people: the owner of a coffee shop and a yoga instructor. These virtuous women are no doubt morally superior to the guy running shirtless at 6:45 a.m. who startles my dog and I while we play “rat or bunny?”

When I asked these women if they’re morning people they quickly said no. The coffee shop owner actually takes all the closing shifts, she told me, and considers herself just a midday person. The yoga teacher more or less said she was only awake because it’s what the job requires, and that she’s from a long time of night owls. In talking about her chronotype, she bordered on defensive. No doubt she’d been sold on the righteousness of waking early, especially if she did her teacher training with any of your traditional gluten-fearing yogis.

Almost every Google search I’ve done about morning people has led to tips on how to become an early bird. There are almost no how-tos for becoming a night owl; no one thinks you should do that. 

So I have to push back against being labeled a morning person: I don’t want anyone under the impression that I think I’m better. I didn’t try to become a person who wakes up early, it just started to happen and I started to see some useful benefits. Has it improved my overall demeanor? Absolutely not: I can be a Care Bear of hostility regardless of how many pages I’ve read or squats I’ve done before 9 a.m. It’s just nice that I’m not hustling to fit everything in throughout my day and into the evening like I once did.

The problem with morning bird personalities is the chirping. If your schedule works for you, that’s a really great thing. But being on the early side does not make you better than others, and the hour at which someone wakes should not be the metric by which you measure their worth.

Lately, I’ve seen actual morning birds yanking worms out of the ground. It’s not that impressive — and it’s actually pretty disgusting!