began this habit today ...
The first habit is the morning offering, when you kneel down and using your own words, or a formula, you briefly offer up all the day ahead for God's glory. What is not so simple is what has to happen before the offering. As the founder of Opus Dei put it "Conquer yourself each day from the very first moment, getting up on the dot, at a set time, without granting a single minute to laziness. If with the help of God, you conquer yourself in the moment, you have accomplished a great deal for the rest of the day. It's so discouraging to find yourself beaten in the first skirmish (The Way, 191). In my pastoral experience, those who can live the "heroic moment" in the morning and in the evening going to bed on time will have both the physical and spiritual energy throughout the day to stop what they are doing in order to live the other habits. - from The Seven Daily Habits of Holy Apostolic People by Fr. John McCloskey
My new year's resolution was to stop using the snooze alarm. I have been semi-successful but have been reminded several times, in different places, to follow through with it. Yesterday at Mass Fr. Brad was talking about Simon, Andrew, James and John - about the way that they dropped their fishing nets immediately to follow Jesus. Do we follow like that when Jesus calls us? The first call of the day is the alarm clock ;) to get up and do what we need to do for the day.
the Adventures of Some Girl in Indiana
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ps - i tried to fix the text size and it wouldn't work :( sorry if you need a microscope to read it.
hard stuff, here.
i fail at both ends of the day.
alarm goes off at 4:42am - i hit snooze - alarm goes off at 4:51am - i hit snooze - alarm goes off at 5:00am - i try to get up.
going to bed early is a regular aim - i miss the mark - land on the pillow somewhere between 10:00pm - 11:30pm - and that after having intended to go to bed by 9:30pm.
Jim - 4:42, 4:51, 5:00 - does that mean you set your alarm clock deliberately in order to give yourself two snooze opportunities before the time you actually plan to get up? That's an innovative way to do it. Maybe you could try setting it for 4:51 some time and see what happens :) But you're right, it is hard!!!
And we all howled at our parents who relentlessly tried to get us into the habit of getting out of bed, showered, dressed and hopefully brush our teeth to get us to school, appointments, church and various other activities. What's the trick? One suggestion was to make it a daily habit from early childhood. Require a decent bedtime and require a time in the morning when the household must be up and moving. No argument, no backtalk, this is just the way it is. This was not a battle that I chose to fight with my teens and so they struggle to keep up with their responsibilities as working adults in a 9 to 5 world. They did suffer their own consequences of late nights but I often wonder, as many parents do, if that battle would have made their life easier now...but then their was........COLLEGE......... which may have blown all my training???
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