Yes, I'm listening. Can't you tell by my snoring?
By Burton W. Cole
Remember when listening to instructional tapes while you slept were all the rage? What I couldn’t figure out was why, if people shucked out wads of cash to learn while they slept, did my wife get so upset when I nodded off while she was talking?
Didn’t my snores mean I was giving her my full concentration to the point that I not only was willing not to listen to her, but was committed to learning everything she said? I was shutting out all other distractions by falling asleep so that I could fully absorb and appreciate her observations.
Oddly, she got snippy.
She kept interrupting my efforts, jerking me bolt upright with, “Oh, just go to bed!”
Later, after I have had a good night’s sleep to meditate on this paradox, I asked how my good and pure intentions irritated her so.
“I can’t stand it when you won’t admit you’re worn out. You just sit there with your head bouncing up and down like a bobble-head doll. Just go to bed.”
Phew. I feared she’d accuse me of finding her boring. She wasn’t. Her topics of conversation, though, sometimes could be… well, why waste time counting sheep?
Anyway, why are we, as a society, so opposed to sleep? For being one of the healthiest, intellectually stimulating things a body can do, there is plenty of prejudice against it.
Just try taking a nap on the job to improve your performance. Bosses never applaud the thoughtfulness and care you put into it. (If the bosses got more sleep themselves, they wouldn’t be so cranky.)
Sometimes it seems that nature itself is stacked against sleep.
Most jobs have a design flaw — the starting time is well before noon. Meanwhile, West Coast sports and Monday Night Football drag on past midnight, at which time, if you have any sick kids about in the house, they will begin throwing up on the carpet. Once you get settled into bed, the dog wants outside. And pretty soon the alarm clock is making that annoying racket again.
No one will let you sleep — bosses, customers, telephone solicitors, spouses, car-pool passengers (especially if you’re the one driving — they’re all against it.
In school, geography and world history were two of my worst subjects despite my concentrated efforts. I’d hate to think how much worse my scores would have been had I not been sleeping through classes.
By college, I improved my technique. As a journalism major, I was required to take something called Editing II, a course designed to teach me everything I needed to know to about designing pages and becoming a proficient copy editor.
Instead of merely sleeping in class — which started at the ridiculously early time of 7:20 in the morning — I worked even harder by often not even attending. I stayed in bed and slept, absorbing all the editing I could.
It was because of that extra effort that I was able to pull off a “D.” But it was worth it. Today, it’s how I earn my living. When I told my boss about how hard I worked to learn this job, he said he already had suspected it was something like that.
So you see, people notice when you apply yourself. It’s the smart thing to ... hello? Hello? Hey, out there! Are you listening?
Oh. I get it. You’re committing this instruction to memory. Good idea. I believe I’ll sit back and catch a few minutes of dedication myself.
Cole is lobbying to replace his desk chair with a recliner. Talk to him, quietly, at burton.w.cole@gmail.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.