Rise and retire with the sun..

The birds in the lake are up at dawn preparing to take off for the day.. 

Globalization has lead to bizarre lifestyles and new illnesses. An example is my cousin in India who works as a medical transciptor for American doctors. She leaves to work at 2.30am at night while her family sleeps and returns back home at 2.00pm the next day afternoon. She is battling obesity oblivious of the relationship between lifestyle, sleep deprivation, metabolism and obesity.

Here is another story of an airline pilot who retired financially very well after working 25 years as a pilot. After years of staying awake and sleeping at odd hours he now suffers from chronic insomnia that doesn't let him sleep at night or day!

Compare this with how our grandparents lived in the villages. They rose early morning every single day just before sunrise and finished the days work to retire a little after the sun sets. This same discipline I have discovered in the birds too from watching them through the spring, summer and now the autumn. Whether the days are long or short, they rise and retire with the sun! The first light of the sun is a signal for them to leave the roost and they are all back before the sun's last rays disappears into the horizon.

Night and day exists for a reason and plays a vital role in the daily cycle of every living being. In our foolish attempts to outsmart nature, we discover albeit too late that she has played a cruel trick on us!!  To "Follow the rhythms of nature; rise and retire with the sun" is one of the Ten Commandments for living.