so this is why i like john adams so much. i keep thinking about a journal entry of his that i read in david mccullough’s biography, a resolution that i find very familiar:

I am resolved to rise with the sun and to study Scriptures on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings, and to study some Latin author the other three mornings. Noons and nights I intend to read English authors… I will rouse up my mind and fix my attention. I will stand collected within myself and think upon what I read and what I see. I will strive with all my soul to be something more than persons who have had less advantages than myself.

the next morning, though, adams sleeps in. he wrote in his journal a week later,

A very rainy day. Dreamed away the time.

so even three centuries ago, man struggled to accept his daily bread, the very thing that would satisfy him most. in the choice between creature comforts and the silver bullet that would make life worth living, he chose the snooze button. as have i.