For years, I have been trying to discipline myself into going to bed at a reasonable hour, so that I have time for a good writing session before my obligations begin. I genuinely want to write, and when I step back and consider my goals and values, moving forward with my writing is more important to me than watching YouTube videos or browsing the internet. But, over and over again, I have run into a problem: at night, when it’s time to go to bed, my self in the moment has other desires: to stay up late watching interesting YouTube videos or surfing the internet, researching whatever has captured my curiosity. I know that I “should” get off the computer and go to bed; I know that I had intended on doing so when I made my schedule for the morning, but in the moment, I just don’t want to. 

So, for the next hour, I remain in a state of tension, knowing that I “should” go to bed, but feeling glued to the screen, until finally I pull myself away and get to bed later than I had planned. Then I wake up in the morning, groggy and tired. Again, I set the intention to go to bed early, and, again, when it comes time to go to bed, I resist.

From the outside, it seems like a simple phenomenon: I know I’m supposed to be going to bed, but I’m not exercising the self-discipline required to get off the computer. This implies that there are two selves: the self who is disciplining, and the self who is being disciplined. The self who is disciplining has the desires of waking up in time to write and move forward with that important goal, and the self who is being disciplined has the competing desire of continuing whatever activity is pleasurable and enjoyable in the moment. 

This is a phenomenon I’ve written about before: the “momentary self,” who has short-range, “in-the-moment” desires, but is temporarily ignorant of my big-picture long-range desires, and the “holistic self,” who takes into account those big-picture desires and larger goals. It’s a simple matter of sacrifice: in the moment, I must sacrifice my momentary desires for my more holistic desires. It feels painful in the moment, but ultimately it’s what I really want, since the “holistic self” is my true self, with a greater perspective, not blinded by the impulses and desires of whatever is grabbing my attention in the moment.

My prescription was to simply practice the skill of sacrifice. In the moment, it feels like the momentary self is my true self, and those momentary desires are my true desires. The solution is to recognize that this is an illusion, pull myself away, and break the spell. The more I practice this, the easier it will become, because I’ll build the habit of self-discipline. 

I kept running into a problem, though: it didn’t get easier. Whenever it came time to “discipline myself,” I would just get stuck, facing immense resistance. I would know it was “time to go to bed,” but my mind would convince me that I could push it “just a little bit later.” The idea of “tomorrow morning” felt so abstract as to not even exist. The only thing that felt real was right now. 

From a detached perspective, it seems like the solution is just to exert more willpower. But in order to exert willpower, you have to want whatever you will gain from the exertion. In the moment, I simply don’t want to get up early to write. I don’t even remember having wanted to get up early. In the moment, my big-picture goal of moving forward as a writer is simply offline – or, at the very least, so faint that it barely registers.

All my reasons for going to bed early, which are obvious to me in the morning, are no longer salient in my evening consciousness, like some sort of temporary amnesia. Even when I put sticky notes around my computer or set alarms, it just doesn’t seem to register. The next day has no concrete “feeling,” it’s just an abstract amorphous “later” – again, so faint as to barely register.

The next morning, I’d wake up tired and frustrated with myself, and would think, yet again, “why can’t I remember this feeling at night?!” I would recognize that the feeling of the evening self being the real me was an illusion – an extremely convincing one, but an illusion nonetheless. I had kept trying to discipline myself, but, like Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, in the evening I would be a different person with different desires. As much as I wanted the ideal of becoming more “disciplined,” it wasn’t working. I was deeply blocked, and these two parts of me were in a stalemate. This was like a father trying to discipline a willful teenager who is taller and stronger than he is. 

So, I decided to try a different approach. Instead of trying to get better at doing things I didn’t want to do, I would have to find a way to make my evening self actually want what the morning self wants. The fundamental problem was that I was chronically forgetful or dismissive of the morning self, so I had to bring my morning consciousness into the evening self. Just writing sticky notes wasn’t sufficient; I needed something more powerful.

Sitting at my desk in the morning, I tried to pinpoint the tricks my brain played on me at night. I realized that the primary issue was that, at night, the “next day” just felt too distant and amorphous. I didn’t retain consciousness of the things I had to do the following day, or any of my schedule constraints. The next day always just felt like an open expanse, or like a blank canvas. So what if I slept an extra hour? I could just adjust things here and there. At night, the feeling of only having one hour instead of two hours to write the following morning just did not register as painful. 

The next morning, though, it was extremely painful. I absolutely hated the feeling of waking up, looking at my schedule, realizing I only had one hour to write, and again kicking myself for staying up too late, and feeling stressed about barely moving forward with my writing goals. Even worse, I would often wake up groggy from having been on screens too late before bedtime, and therefore getting poor quality sleep, and not even having the concentration to write at all. Or, from the cumulative effect of having slept too late multiple days in a row, my to-do list would have grown to the point that I really needed to spend the morning getting some urgent chores or work tasks done instead of writing. 

Despite that pain, it just would not carry into my nighttime consciousness. The feeling just wasn’t there. So, how could I bring this feeling of pain into my nighttime consciousness? How could I remember the reasons I wanted to wake up on time, and, more importantly, the feeling of wanting to wake up on time? I reflected on all the reasons why it was important for me to wake up early, and all the things I was forgetting at night. I then recorded a voice memo, and set it as my bedtime alarm. To make it even easier for myself, I recorded another voice memo to go off one hour before my bedtime. Most importantly, in both voice memos, I spoke to myself compassionately and gently, not as a “stern disciplinarian.”

That evening, at 9 PM, my phone started speaking to me in my own voice, taking me through a guided meditation. It said,

Repeat after me:

This is my authentic voice speaking.

~

I will get off of screens by 10:00, because I want to feel good tomorrow morning.

~

I want to have enough time for meditation and for writing.

~

Now, think about how you felt this morning when you did not have time for writing.

This next hour is yours. You’re free to do whatever you want on the internet. Enjoy it! Then, at 10:00, get off so that you can enjoy tomorrow morning.

This is *you* speaking, not some other person. This is YOU, speaking from your own desires, working towards your own goals.

10:00. You can do it. You’ve just got to build the habit.

The result was remarkable: I regained consciousness of my holistic desires. I actually felt the desires of my morning self, not just the desires of my evening self. I felt the desire to have time for meditation in the morning, and to have adequate time for writing. I felt the pain of my morning being rushed.

An hour later, at 10 PM, instead of ringing with an obnoxious alarm sound, my phone started speaking to me in my own voice:

Alright, time to get ready for bed. I know you’re really absorbed in what you’re doing; you want to stay up later; you want to honor your drive for flexibility and freedom. What does it matter when you go to bed? But here’s what you’re not remembering in this moment: your time after lunch is fixed because of your teaching schedule. After lunch you have an hour for chores, an hour for exercise, and then it’s time to go to work. You only have the morning until noon for writing.

You can keep doing what you’re doing tomorrow night. It will still be there. Have the courage to withstand the discomfort. You’ll be proud of yourself. I know, because I’m you. 

And you know what? It worked! It worked like magic. At 10:00, after hearing my alarm, I closed the computer, and started to get ready for bed. I didn’t feel like I was “pushing through resistance;” I didn’t feel like I was “disciplining myself.” I didn’t feel like I was sacrificing my freedom and happiness for the sake of an abstract other. Instead, I actually wanted to go to bed more than I wanted to stay up late. My momentary self now included my holistic desires. I achieved integration, not submission. The two opposing selves became one.

After trying (and failing) for years to establish a consistent bedtime, I’ve finally done it. At the moment of writing this, I’ve been consistently going to bed on time for a couple weeks, and have been reaping immense benefits from it, which has made it even easier to continue going to bed on time. I go to bed joyfully, without resentment, without struggle. 

I haven’t become “more disciplined.” I haven’t gotten better at forcing myself to do something that I don’t want to do. I haven’t even tricked my brain into wanting something it doesn’t actually want. Instead, I have found a way to remember what I truly want. I have found glasses for my brain’s time-blindness.

Maybe I’m really just a weak person with no self-discipline, and I’ve found a way to avoid building that muscle. Sometimes the most self-critical part of me believes that. But, even if that were the case, I’d rather live a life where I do things joyfully and effortlessly, instead of forcing myself to do things. I’d rather be integrated than “disciplined.” Maybe, deep down, I always knew that, and my brain was avoiding discipline because I don’t want to be fragmented into multiple selves. Maybe my brain has been instinctively nudging me towards integration and wholeness all along.