Maybe You Should Wake Up at 3AM
Against early rising as discipline
If this is your first time here, read this short introduction first to know what to expect from these posts and the approach I’m taking to write them.
Personal development authors and influencers boast online about their early rising as a form of discipline. It’s not. And most don’t deserve any credit for it. Waking up early is a glorified lifestyle choice that takes no effort after a short adjustment period. At that point, it’s more of a preference than an accomplishment—no different from having dinner in the late afternoon instead of at night. I
My day starts between 3 and 4am during the months I live here in Tokyo each year. I need it to be that way to keep up with my business in a different time zone. After about two weeks of getting used to it, it takes no discipline to keep doing it. Zero. My body often wakes up before my alarm rings (I can’t take credit for that), and the problem becomes waking up too early because I’ll be exhausted by the afternoon. II
Another issue with the early rising craze is that, despite what they want to sell us about the wonders of “owning the morning,” there’s no magic to it. “The 5am club”? I’m in the 3am “club,” and there’s no fairy dust falling on me that makes my day better. Compared to my night owl life the rest of the year, my early bird life isn’t an improvement—it’s just different. And above all, choosing one over the other is mostly a matter of preference and priorities, not discipline. III
Also, why is 4 or 5am the consensus to earn a discipline badge? If waking up early means you are disciplined, wouldn’t waking up even earlier make you more disciplined? So why not 2am? Or better, midnight—so you can “win the day” from the moment it starts while all the ‘losers’ are asleep #CrushingIt
The premise breaks down when we try to ‘one-up’ it: Someone wakes up every day at 5am—disciplined. Wakes up at 4am—admirable. Up at 3am—kind of eccentric. 2am—psychopath.1
Wake-up times don’t translate into qualities or flaws of character; they are just conventions, preferences, or when necessary, obligations.
Why am I giving this so much importance? There are larger themes underneath: subjective lifestyle choices being signaled as objective qualities, living under other people’s made-up standards, misconceptions about discipline, trade-offs, and following others’ routines instead of choosing what fits our life. IV
To wake up early, you have to give up late nights. That’s the trade-off, and all trade-offs are a question of value. What do you value most? And what are you willing to give up for it? Following someone else’s routine without knowing their goals and priorities is copying the outcome of a value judgment we know nothing about—one that might not align with our situation at all. V
For someone building a career as a DJ, for example, it would make more sense to give up early mornings to stay fresh and rested for constant night performances. Same goes for a surgical resident working night shifts over long stretches. Giving up early morning jogs, even if enjoyable, would be the sensible trade-off for staying sharp and performing at their best for patients. In these cases, waking up early would be counterproductive or irresponsible.
Discipline is not getting up at an arbitrary time: it’s consistently doing something that requires effort or sacrifice but aligns with how we want to live. If there is no effort and no sacrifice in what we do, is it really discipline? If that were the case, then why not admire many elderly people who wake up and exercise so early it makes the popular Navy SEALs–turned–self-help personalities look like amateurs. We don’t because we assume (rightly or wrongly) that it’s not an effort for older people to wake up early—since sleeping schedules tend to change with age—and that they’re likely not giving up a crazy nightlife to do it.
And the same goes for those who have been waking up early for more than a few weeks and don’t care, don’t want, or don’t need to have a night life.2 So, if it’s not a sacrifice for them to give up their nights, and it takes no effort to wake up early after some adjusting, where is the discipline? No effort and no sacrifice = No discipline.3
If someone enjoys late nights but gives them up because there is something they value more in waking up early, that takes discipline—though the discipline becomes more about consistently sticking to the trade-off and going to bed early. The larger point is that it’s not a given that everyone who wakes up early is sacrificing something they value or making an effort to do so.
If late nights align more with your preferences and priorities, why give them up? That would be a transgression against yourself just to live up to someone else’s made-up standards. Don’t focus on anyone’s routine choices or sleeping schedules; their life is not your life, and their circumstances are not your circumstances. What matters is that your habits and behaviors align with how you want to live. You might reach the same conclusion and decide that waking up early (or any other routine) is best for you, but it would come from your individual needs and preferences, not someone else’s—and much less from their self-congratulatory version of discipline.
Encore?
Digressions
(You can find matching numerals in the main post to know where these connect)
I. It takes some discipline to get the habit started, but once you’re used to it, it’s easy to maintain—unless you keep staying up late. So, if there is any discipline in early rising after a few weeks, it’s really in heading to bed early and resisting doing things late at night—if that’s what you enjoy. But if you don’t mind going to bed early, or even prefer it, then waking up early takes no effort.
And while we’re on the subject of people boasting about early morning routines, a 4pm workout is just as valid as the 4am one they post about with some caption like “Win the morning, win the day.” The worst part is that I’ve been that guy, thinking my 4am workouts meant more because I was the only one at the gym. They didn’t.
II. The other side is that I must be in bed early. I like being in Tokyo, but I have to run my business, so the compromise to be here and not neglect my responsibilities is to wake up early, and by extension, go to sleep early and give up my nightlife. I’m okay with that trade-off.
III. Being a morning or a night person has a different rhythm and tone—each with its own benefits. In my case, I have more vitality when I’m on an early routine. I feel energized and clearheaded in a way that waking up later never matches. I’m also more productive, but life is not all about productivity.
Late nights are better for insight and checking in with ourselves. My best moments of introspection, deep thinking, and deciding on new directions for my life have come in the dead of night, when everything is quiet, the body is tired, and we find ourselves alone in a room under the weight of the day with only our thoughts.
Many people find late nights psychologically dark. They are for me, too. But sometimes that darkness is there for a reason, and we are supposed to find out what it’s trying to tell us—usually that we are unhappy about something in our life and we should work to change it.
I find late nights necessary to dive into my darkness and find the shining pearls hidden within it, pearls I can’t see during the bright light of day. Early mornings cover up a lot of our dissatisfaction and existential dread with vitality and productivity. I wonder how many people go on an early routine just to keep the darkness at bay, darkness that could reveal ignored problems in their lives, but also give them the determination to face them.
Aside from bringing greater introspection, late nights have also been the backdrop of many of the most fun and memorable moments of my life.
IV. What they chose works for them, and maybe they innocently assumed that it would work for everyone else—and that’s why they endorse it. Or maybe they are trying to validate their schedule choice by boosting its status and shoving it down everyone’s throat. Maybe waking up early can improve your life, but maybe not. It depends on your life. They can’t possibly know what’s best for you—only you can find out.
V. I once heard a famous author say something along the lines of ‘when I was young, I thought going to bed late was the shit, now I realize waking up early is the real shit.’ No. Going to bed late was the shit when you were young, and now waking up early is the shit given the change in lifestyle, age, and circumstances.
It’s condescending to judge our past self’s preferences from the viewpoint of our present self—who’s a different person living a different life. If we could go back to our past, who would trade their teenage late-night talks with friends and epic outings for morning jogs and a boost in productivity? I don’t think many would.
There is a special tone to late nights when you are at that age, and being out socializing, dancing, partying, listening to music, or just hanging out was not only enjoyable but, within reason, appropriate.
Late nights were great back then. It could be different now, but it doesn’t make one choice better than the other objectively; they are only better or worse depending on the circumstances. It’s our task to find out what works best for us and for the situation we are in.
Related Quotes
“If the way you live your life is a response to how others would have you live it, it really is not your life at all.”
—Richard Taylor (Restoring pride, paraphrased)
“Think your own thoughts, not mine! Live your life! Do not follow me blindly, but remain free!”
—Michel de Montaigne (Essays)
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”
—Oscar Wilde (De Profundis)
“Look into yourself. Do not compare, do not measure. No other way is like yours. All other ways deceive and tempt you. You must fulfill the way that is in you.”
—Carl Jung (The Red Book)
“To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves—there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect.”
—Joan Didion (Self-respect)
Behind the Exploration
(Notes on the Writing)
The idea for this thinking exploration came as I was listening to someone on a podcast talk about the discipline of waking up early. I had been up since 3am, and I thought, ‘I woke up that early without an alarm, and I’ve been doing it for months with no effort. Where’s the discipline? After some adjusting, it’s more of a lifestyle choice.’
I struggled with the post for weeks, though. It took a while to get to the heart of it (living our own lives instead of following others’ made-up standards) and for the outline to come together. I wanted to explore larger themes through a specific tension point: early rising is not discipline. But many times it felt like the piece was focusing too much on wake-up times, and the greater message was getting lost.
I put it aside a few times and thought of writing something else. The point of this type of writing is to discuss larger ideas through something specific. If I couldn’t bring the undercurrent of the main themes to flow through the examples and criticism, the post would end up being an empty rant on wake-up times and people boasting about them. I ended up sticking with it and rewrote until I felt it had the right harmony.
Thank you for joining me in this exploration.
Links
Here’s a book on the different daily routines and rituals of famous people from history (shows there’s no one magic schedule for productivity or greatness)
Daily Rituals
The same author has another book with the same idea, but focused on famous women
Daily Rituals Women at Work
Soundtrack (main song I had on repeat during most of the writing)
It unintentionally resonates with the piece—the chorus translates to Here comes the sun
Sonne by Rammstein
Notes
Shift workers and uncommon working schedules excluded.
I doubt Jocko Willink is losing sleep over all the raving, drinking, and partying he’s not doing so he can work out at 4am.
Just habit.