Working on yourself

A younger fellow who looks up to me as a mentor came looking for me, few days ago. He had just returned from a journey, where he had gone to attend a conference in another state entirely. He is looking forward to burying his dad who had passed on earlier in the year. On his way back from his journey, he had stopped by to consult the elders in his extended family Concerning the burial rites.

I must say that we have some of the most ridiculous and unhealthy practices in my culture where rites like burial, and marriage is a concern.

In the case of burial, a family will loose their breadwinner, instead of the members of the extended family to contribute their resources for the upkeep of the children that are left behind, they will rather give the immediate family of the demise a list of things to bring to the village just so that the person they lost can be buried.

I don't want to talk about marriage tonight, but just to say a little, a friend of mine was given a marriage list that amounted to over 2million naira. He was procure the items on the list in order to the marry the lady he loved.

Back to my friend that came around. He was with a list of things that he was asked to bring as a consultation price to his extended family, so that they might be officially informed of the day he intend to bury his father.

I went through the list with him. The items in there were valued about a hundred thousand naira.

My friend needed time to clear his head from the journey he just returned, as well as being in a better shape, psychologically to face his mum and younger siblings upon his return to his house. So he had requested that he sleeps over at my place. Of course I obliged. He is a sweet boy.

While talking; from the gospel; which is the premise we met about ten years ago, to how he's gonna bury his dad, time in it's usual manner flew, it was about 12 midnight before we realized, I told my friend to go bed.

Source
He replied me with that motivational speakers aura.

"There will be a time to sleep, for now I stay awake to work on myself". He said.

I'm sure he expected me to applaud him as a good mentee, because that statement really sound like what I would have said some years back.

I really did make peace with sleeplessness. There was certain period I was making do with just three hours of sleep in 24 twenty fours. In my estimation, I was really working on myself.

Sleeping up to 6 hours was a taboo to me. I will be guilt-tripped by my conscience if I dare.

In my estimation "I was working on myself".

A deeper thought made me to realize that having a good night rest, is also a way of "working on myself"

We do make our to-do list without taking into consideration that our body requires a certain hours of sleep a day.

Expert says that the healthy amount of rest required by adult, for the body's optimal performance is 7 hours.

I can't say that I now mandatorily sleep for 7 hours, but my sleeping hours has greatly improved.

I told my friend that he has to work on himself by sleeping as well.

Sleep is of immense benefits. Its importance can't be emphasized.

Sleeplessness is not always tantamount to productivity.

It has never been about how many hours we are awake but what we do while awake.

There would be nights you'll have to burn the candle at both ends, but on no account should it be an everyday thing.

Yes as young people we need to work on ourselves.

Sleeping is also one of the ways we do that.