“Piiiiinnnnngg. Piiiiinnnnngg. Piiiiinnnnngg. Piiiii—”
I always catch it on the fourth one. Bleary-eyed, I shut off my iPhone’s standard-issue alarm because I want to make sure I can spring out of bed. But I don’t. I linger. I let the last minutes of August darkness hold me a little longer, as if my body knows these quiet stretches are rarer than gold. I tell myself I’m meditating, but that’s a lie. It’s just sleeping again, the small rebellion of rolling over before the day has its way with me.
And yet, the day always comes. The rhythm of school days now arrives earlier and earlier, almost absurdly so. Back when I was a kid, late September was when things began in earnest. Now? Third full day of school before Labor Day. “It’s time to make the donuts.”
If you remember Fred the Baker, the weary pitchman for Dunkin’ Donuts back in the ’80s, then you remember the ritual of rising before dawn to grind. That tagline was America’s anthem for years: duty before rest, productivity before joy. The grind was the virtue. The grind was the point.
But here’s the truth: grind culture was never about the donuts. It was about us, convincing ourselves that punishing starts and bleary mornings proved something about our worth. Studies now tell us later starts are healthier, that rest produces better outcomes. But we’ve never been a people overly enamored with data. Puritans may be long gone, but their ethic still drags us out of bed in the dark, convinced that suffering builds character.
And yet, I’ve been learning—slowly, stubbornly—that the opposite is true. Character isn’t built only in the grind. It is shaped in the pauses, in the spaces we make for ourselves when the rest of the world insists on going faster. I have written before about walking as meditation, about watching hawks circle overhead, about stealing back moments the culture tells us to spend on productivity. Rest is not wasted time. It is the very thing that makes us whole.
Think of Sabbath. Think of time away. Think of all the traditions, ancient and modern, that knew enough to step back. They knew there was no wholeness without rhythm, no wisdom without silence, no joy without rest. We are at our most human not when we run ourselves down, but when we choose to stop, breathe, and let the fullness of the day catch up with us.
This very blog was written between 5:00 and 6:00 AM, yes. I have been faithful to the discipline of early rising, and that faithfulness has helped me to write more than a hundred reflections since last year. But I don’t stay up only for the discipline. I stay up long enough to watch the sun finally crest the horizon. I watch the light flood in. I taste what it means to be alive.
That is what they don’t tell you. The grind isn’t the gift. The gift is what waits beyond it—the slow light breaking through, the cup of coffee sipped without hurry, the donut tasted instead of rushed.
To be alive is not only to “make the donuts.” To be alive is to sit still long enough to eat one. To be alive is to choose, in small rebellions, to slow down.
Curated Listening:
If playfulness and ease are what you are after, Al Jarreau’s Morning always fits the bill. Jarreau reminds us that a new day doesn’t have to be conquered; it can be entered with joy, improvisation, and a little swing. Listen to Morning HERE.
I love this. I try to reserve time to savor life and appreciate my surroundings every day. Not always successful! But I try…