Thoughts that go bump in the night

What not to do when you're lying awake at 3 am

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights (zoomed-in), 1490-1500

Incredible thoughts occur at 3 am when one can’t sleep. It’s an opportunity to reflect on all the great decisions I’ve ever made, such as deciding to continue a career in the arts “post-Covid.” I often take the time to give myself positive affirmations like “There is nothing wrong with your knee,” just like any other stress-free human. I get to tell myself that I did a great job raising my cat, how each break-up that I’ve had was extremely cordial and healthy, how elegant I feel at all times, and that my extended family definitely understands what I do for work….. And most of all, I can reflect on how zen I’ve become.

Here is a list of things I never do at 3 am (and neither should you)

• If you notice that your ear feels itchy, don’t Google your symptoms

• Don’t think about when you accidentally wrote “base,” on the whiteboard for a music history class that you taught when you were actually talking about “bass.”

• Don’t start Googling “How many people were murdered in my neighborhood last year?”

• Don’t try to understand the Jewish calendar

• Don’t Google “2024 Election”

• Don’t play pseudo-psychologist and diagnose everyone in your life that you didn’t get along with as a narcissist

• Don’t panic apply for jobs

• Don’t do a figured bass analysis of the ice cream truck song

• Don’t look at the weather for the week and decide that it is all a result of climate change regardless of what the weather is

• Don’t write an aspirational LinkedIn post

• Don’t Google RFK brain worm

• Don’t think about how you messed up the sight-reading in an audition and continue to wonder if you did just a little bit better, would you have gotten the job

• Do not think about AI taking everyone’s jobs

• Don’t start drafting strongly worded emails to be sent out the next morning

• Don’t apply personalities to all the street cats in the neighborhood

• Don’t Google “How much does a lute cost?”

• Don’t focus intensely on the fact that you are awake at 3 am with a big day ahead thus spiraling into thinking that you’ll never fall asleep ever again.

Please comment something incredibly personal that you don’t do at 3 am when lying awake. After all, knowledge is power. Share this with a friend who could use this advice and please subscribe for more constructive content like this.