"Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." Such is the quotation attributed to Benjamin Franklin, through Poor Richard.
I was thinking about this proverb the other day. What if the principle is in the amount of sleep you get? Let me explain: In order to live your life according to his wise words, you go to bed at 9 and wake up at 5. A cool, 8 hours of sleep. Now, what if you go to bed at 1 and wake up 9? A cool, 8 hours of sleep. But if you live your life by this schedule, you are late to bed, late to rise, but have stayed up for the same amount of time and gotten the same amount of sleep had you followed BF's proverb to the T. If amount of sleep is the principle, then "Go to bed whenever, get up whenever, (but make sure it's at least 8 hours) and you'll be healthy, wealthy and wise" could easily be the proverb.
However, Ben was not telling us we had to get a certain amount of sleep. I think implicit in the quotation is Discipline. Ewww. It's hard to go to bed early and it's hard to get up early. But if you are one who does those things, you are a disciplined individual. And discipline is an attribute which leads to health, wealth and wisdom.
Maybe you all figured this one out in the 1st grade, but I just got it.
2 comments:
Growing up is stupid, sometimes.
I'm going to come wake you up right now. And I love that Josiah posted the same comment to each of our blogs. What a guy
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