When Did Sleep Become an Achievement?
This morning, my phone congratulated me.
- Not for writing a book.
- Not for losing weight.
- Not for exercising.
- Not for finishing a project.
No. It congratulated me because I had successfully managed to be unconscious for eight hours.
Sleep Score: 100/100.Apple Watch
Apparently, this is now one of my greatest accomplishments.
It’s funny how success changes as you get older.
When you’re twenty, sleep is an inconvenience. It’s the thing that interrupts whatever exciting nonsense you’re doing. Staying awake until 4 a.m. is practically a badge of honour.
By your thirties, you start negotiating with it.
“Six hours… that’ll do.”
By your forties, your standards have changed considerably.
“I only woke up twice. That’s a decent night.”
Then, somewhere around fifty, your smartwatch awards you a perfect score, and you immediately want to tell people.
“Look! I did sleeping!”
The score itself is wonderfully absurd.
- Duration: 50/50
- Bedtime: 30/30
- Interruptions: 20/20
One hundred points.
Apparently, I am now an Olympic-level unconscious person.
The older I get, the more I realise that life’s victories become strangely… practical.
- You celebrate finding a parking space directly outside the supermarket.
- You celebrate buying the correct cable first time.
- You celebrate standing up without making an involuntary sound effect.
- Your doctor says, “Everything looks normal,” and it becomes the highlight of your month.
- You discover there are no meetings until 11 a.m., and suddenly the day feels full of possibility.
These aren’t the glamorous victories your younger self imagined.
They’re better.
I’ve spent plenty of nights lying awake thinking about work, writing, life, and the thousand tiny problems that only seem to exist after midnight. So waking up to a perfect score is, in reality, something worth celebrating.
Even if it is slightly ridiculous.
So yes, today I’m celebrating an achievement that twenty-year-old me would have laughed at.
I slept properly.
For eight whole hours
That’s a pretty good day already.
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