By Eze Echie
The last time we met, we considered the issue of waking up on the wrong side of the bed as usually mistakenly assumed by (some or a lot of ) people. But one cannot talk about waking up when one did not lay on the bed in the first instance. This, by implication, means that the same way we prepare to get out of the bed and go out for the day’s business should be the way we get off the day’s business and get to ‘bed business’ (if you like to call it such).
Sleep is a natural phenomenon. Sleep is a natural instinct in humans. We do not necessarily need to learn to sleep (so to speak). But do we not need to learn to sleep well? Or, does it mean that it is always easy to sleep as it is a natural thing? I remember some time ago when someone asked me if I was an insomniac. It was a question that arose out of the fact that when they thought I should be sleeping I was still very much awake. But it was not a case of suffering from insomnia. I was simply awake at that ‘odd’ hour (of the night) because I had got some serious business to do about my scripts (and some other things). But all this is by the way. It is just to say that, no matter how natural sleep is, at times, it becomes unnatural because there is something that makes a person not be able to sleep. And it is either an abnormal negative or an abnormal positive, whichever way we choose to look at it from, depending on the context as well.
All things being equal (even if they cannot always be), we want to look at certain things we need to do before going to the bed in order not to wake up on the wrong side of the bed or the wrong side of the mind (as the case may be). Let us predicate our thoughts on the thinking that if one is going to lay on the bed at night preparatory to sleep, it is adequately assumed that one is done with the day’s business. Is it always true that we get everything done before getting to bed? In other words, is it always possible that we finish every day’s task before we lay on the bed? It is not a straightforward answer. Or, we should say that it is a YES-NO answer of some sort. At times, we get through everything we planned to do or accomplish in a day before going to bed. True to that, we succeed. Such moments make one to be full of fond feelings of fulfilment, a sense of great achievements. At some other times, we barely get that done. There are even some times that it looks as if our performance in the day was a zero one – being at the lowest ebb. These are three different scenarios. The first picture painted is one of an excellent performance; the second, speaks of an average or a little above average performance, while the third evokes the atmosphere of abysmal failure. Each of them has some kind of feelings they leave us with. We have positive or negative impressions on our minds.
Given the three scenarios above, one can, perhaps, say that in the first instance, which has to do with when one is able to achieve one’s purposes in and for the day according to one’s plans, it is to be substantially guessed or assumed that one will be going to the bed with much sense of success – being very happy to have achieved this or that. Probably, too, if one goes to bed in that mood (and mode), one is as well likely to wake up in that kind of spirit. This is just an assumption anyway. It is so said because humans are not robots and do have mood swings for one reason or the other. This possibility should therefore not be taken for granted at all. But let us stick with the positive mood or aura.
In the second instance, one can also say that such a person who did not achieve as much as expected in the day would be going to bed with a sense of ‘a-half-cup’ of happiness. They might feel that they are ‘half-fulfilled’ in the endeavours of the day. This particular situation also leaves one with some reasonable questions: Is it that one succeeded partially? Is it that one failed largely?
lMark these expressions: succeeded PARTIALLY and failed LARGELY. You can see how tilted the perceptions or judgements are. If one succeeded partially, is it not also to be said that one failed partially? If one succeeded partially and one says that one failed LARGELY, then, there must be something that has to do with perception or misperception (if you like). But let us not get to that for now.
In the third scenario, where one thinks that one has done a zero performance in the day, one could possibly be going to bed with a zero sense of happiness. If that is the case, too, such a person might as well sleep and wake up on the wrong side of the bed. How true then? Is there not something that has to do with perception (or misperception) as in the case above?
Truth be told, whether one made great accomplishments or not, one could still go to bed with a positive feeling if one chooses to. If one made a partial success or a huge failure in the day, one could still go to bed with a positive mind if one chooses to do so. If one had zero success in the day, one could still go to bed with a positive mind. It all depends on how one perceives or misperceives the day’s events, successes and or failures. It all boils down to the fact that we need to clarify something about ourselves, our successes and or failures in our daily endeavours. Do we define what happens to us or does what happens to us define us? Do we define success or does success define us? Do we define failure or does failure define us? Do we understand that each (of these, success and failure) is actually a part of the other? To succeed, or in our pursuit of success, we must encounter some form of failure. Also, when we fail, we can learn useful lessons that can further advance us on the path of success. Success is not entirely without an experience of failure and failure is not entirely without an experience of success. They are intertwined, because we speak of one in the midst of the other and also speak of the other in the absence of one of them.
It is important we get this into our minds because the state of our minds before we get to bed has a way of influencing our minds when we wake up in the morning. So, it is not about the particular side of the bed we wake up from but the particular side of our mind we wake up from. Do we let a part of us (a substantial part of us) be engrossed by the darkness that results from the feelings of failures and or inadequacies or total feeling of nothingness?
Before we get to bed, one way or the other, we do a sort of stocktaking whether we consciously observe it or not. That is why it is good to be very clear about what is on our mind before we go to sleep. Success or failure? Are we really TOTALLY successful? Are we really TOTALLY failures? I don’t think any of these extremes is a tenable perspective or argument. But what is very important – much more important – is that we have to duly acknowledge the fact that what we need to be alert to is: whether we are on a progressive journey on the path of success or a progressive journey on the path of failure. This should help to put us in the right mood as we prepare to go to bed, if we always learn to take more positive steps amidst the reality of the day. We can succeed better, much as we can as well move from failure to success (and do it much more than we could ever think).
Eze Echie: scholar, prolific author, poet and columnist wrote in from Port Harcourt, Rivers State, NIgeria.
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