Joy in other’s unfortunate desire to sleep

This is one of my favorite times to write. I just spent the last two hours sitting in the lobby of a beautiful Vermont inn, working on my book, while the dozen or so guests (my wife included) quietly slumbered away.

My wife and I are in Manchester, Vermont, participating in the Books on the Nightstand weekend retreat. As much as we miss our daughter already, we couldn’t be more excited about the day ahead.

Since 5:00, I’ve written about two thousand words of fiction, completed a blog post to my daughter, written a short post for this blog, caught up on the news (government shutdown averted) and watched the sun come up over the low, rounded mountain to the east.

It’s been a joyous morning so far.

I’ve recently begun work on a semi-autobiographical book related to productivity, which sprung from a blog post that was getting entirely too long to post. One of the tenets of the productive life, I believe, is finding great joy in being productive.

This morning has been a perfect example of this.

And it explains why this is one of my favorite times to write:

Early in the morning, when the world is still dark, in a building filled with sleeping guests.

The building full of sleeping guests is the important part.

It sounds a little mean, but I take an immense amount of admittedly perverse pleasure knowing that I just spent two hours getting things done while so many others merely slept.

A little bit of personal schadenfreude to start my day.

I suspect early morning runners experience this same feeling, though most are not as foolish enough as me to admit to it.