Midnight Self

Last night I couldn't sleep. I was thinking. I was excited.

I would lay there in bed for about 20 minutes and then get up and walk around while my little head tried to work through the mass of ideas and thoughts that kept on circulating. Then I would lay back down and in a minutes I would be up again walking and thinking. I was to excited to sleep. These thoughts were urgent and they were important.

My entire life I have had nights like these. Nights where the passion and excitement in my mind will not allow my body to sleep. It's almost the same feeling a child has the day before going to Disneyland or on Christmas Eve.

I could be wrong, but I don't feel like I'm alone on this.

Everyone has these nights that give birth to revelations. The best example I can think of is in the movie "Jerry Maguire". In the middle of the night Tom Cruise has a revelation and writes a massive memo and distributes it to all his co-workers at a sports management agency the next day. But that night he wrote, he couldn't sleep. The idea was too important, too urgent. If he slept it would be lost. But after he actualllly gives out the memo, he almost immediately tries to get it back. He wasn't sure about the relevance of its content. He loses his confidence in his idea. Not because he doesn't believe in the idea or concept, but more because he is not sure how others will react to it.

I find that I am very similar to this character. My midnight self is bold, passionate, and confident. My midnight self can literally do everything he thinks up and will do anything in order to see his dreams and passions materialize. You can't talk my midnight self out of much.

But then I eventually go to sleep, and wake up my regular daytime self. And the ideas and revelations I conceived the night before seem so far away and so irrational and unattainable. My daytime self wants to be bold but is too worried about what people think about him. He's worried about his bank account balance. He's worried about all the things the world says he should be worried about. There's no time for revelations with all this going on.

I believe that it would literally change the world if we could somehow make our midnight self and our daytime self one. If we could let our worries and guards down and amplify our passions and revelations... It would be amazing to one night lay in bed not being able to sleep, thinking about an idea and then the next day do everything possible to execute that idea. No matter what the risk: personal, financial, status, and whatever else would fit on that list.

I think we can slowly do this everyday. And for some people it might not be a nightime thing. It might be that when you write your ideas they are so beautiful and real but when you put down the pen, those same ideas seem unattainable. Or maybe when you talk to certain people it evokes a real, urgent passion to do something. But soon after the conversation that passion and urgency fade away and you are back to your regular self worried about regular things that the world has inflicted on you.

I am beginning to believe that our midnight selves are a much more realistic representation of what life should be. The midnight self says, "Get out of my way", "I don't care what you think", "I can and I am going to do this". "It doesnit matter what speed bumps or obstacles come up, this is too important to let go of."

This is such a beautiful idea of how life should be. It leaves us with a blank canvas and no fear or hesitation to pick up the brush and just paint.