Me vs. Sleep

Sometimes I stay up way too late. I can’t help it. There’s no good reason. Nothing good on TV. No one to talk to. No work to do. And, in all truth, I’m actually pretty tired. I just hate giving in. I’m a competitive guy and I don’t like losing.

For example, once in a while I’ll be awake at some late hour (say, 1:00am). It’s already later than I normally go to sleep. But instead of just going to sleep, I’ll log into my email and refresh the page every few minutes, just to see if anyone emailed me. But it’s not that I’m expecting anyone to. I didn’t just send an email that needs replying. I literally just refresh my email in spite of sleep.

After not getting any emails for about 45 minutes, I’ll start to look for the next sleep-evading activity. More often than not, it’s TV.

If you’ve ever been awake and in front of a television after 12:00am then you know that ninety percent of the shows (or “programs” if you’re over 60) are infomercials. To most of you, that’s bad. But if you’ve just been refreshing your email for an hour, it’s actually quite refreshing.

There’s something utopian about infomercials. Infomercial people are much sprightlier than real-life people. Everything always works just how it’s supposed to work. Grown men can have ponytails and no one thinks they need to be punched in the face for it. And everything is always on sale.

But even infomercials begin to bore me after about an hour (usually it’s around 2:45am), which is around the same time my eyes start to burn from eighteen hours of air-contact. It’s a sign that I should go to sleep. But so was sunset. And so was the TV show Cheaters. But I obviously have trouble taking hints. All my eyes need aree a little knuckle-rub and they’ll be good to go for at least another half-hour.

By this time I’m yawning every thirty-nine seconds. They’re deep and slow. They feel good, relieving. I desperately think for something else to do — anything but sleep. The strange thing is, I’m so tired. But I’ve fought so hard to stay up and I’m not going to give up now.

I continue to fight it for another fifteen minutes. But sleep is a tough foe for even the feistiest fellow. My eyelids start to sag; the lashes almost touch. My head tips forward. Just before my chin reaches my sternum, I jerk it back and widen my eyes. It happens a few more times and next thing I know, it’s sunrise.

I get up from the couch, turn off the TV, mutter to myself, “we’ll call it a draw” and wobble up the stairs to my room so I can get a few hours of sleep in my warm, cozy bed. Soon consciousness will try to wake me up. But it won’t be easy. After all, I hate losing.

Reevaluating The Weight Watchers Formula

This day and age there is much talk about being healthy. Thanks to diet companies like Weight Watchers, people no longer consume food; they consume points. And so being healthy has become a simple equation: the less points, the healthier the meal. This system may seem wonderful at first glance, but we have to wonder what long term effects this revolutionary point system will have on society.

For centuries points have been a way of keeping score. Keeping score has been a way of selecting a winner. Winning has been a way of deciding who is better. This age-old formula lead to the creation of the “The More Points, The Better” theorem. Commonly written: PN=NB (Points x Number = Number x Better). This system has been the common denominator among all competitions for thousands of years.

Essentially, the Weight Watchers system creates a new formula that can be read PN=NW (Points x Number = Number x Worse), or “The More Points The Worse.” It does not take a mathematician to see the threat that the Weight Watchers point system poses to the age-old competition formula. The Weight Watchers formula is tampering with people’s understanding of better and worse. Adults may be able to handle such confusing messages, but what about the children?

Just imagine what would happen if kids got mixed up between the two point systems. Lets say Timmy is on a diet and he’s logging his food intake for the week. He brings his chart in at the end of the week and he’s so happy. He thinks he’s a winner. He thought he got a bonus for eating a cheeseburger every day. He has enough points to win a double overtime game against the Phoenix Suns!

In reality, Timmy consumed enough saturated fat to increase is body fat percentage by 234%, and repaint the walls of his arteries from dark red to a cream-white cholesterol. All thanks to the misleading Weight Watchers formula.

The other tragic scenario would be that the Weight Watchers formula would condition children that it’s not how many points you score in a game, but whether or not you had fun. They would learn that they don’t need points to feel good about themselves, or even worse, they don’t’ want them. And that would be a social travesty.

These extremely scientific examples prove that children need a clear-cut, consistent way to understand point-evaluating systems. We must create systems where points are good. Such as the compliment system. This is a system I have come up with in which every time you get a compliment, you get a point.  The formula is CN=PN (you get the idea). This will help teach our children that the more you are complimented, the better you are. Thus we stick to the traditional point formula, “The More Points The Better” and society can can continue to exist in harmony.