I have recently been going through a rough patch with my alarm clock and I started realising that it’s not about waking up but about keeping a promise to myself to wake up. Join me as I go down a rabbit hole of my own making where I link my self-respect to my alarm clock, come on you know you want to 😉
As always a CHATGPT Verboseless version is available 😀
What do Alarms and promises have to do with each other? Yes, it seems like an obscure combination but I think I found a connection between them. Let’s take our daily alarm, assuming you have one, as our example for a promise. I promise myself to wake up tomorrow morning at this time, I shall use my device of choice, most likely a mobile phone, to make an ungodly amount of noise to rip me from my slumber and I shall in fact rise from my bed and get on with my day. I had to make the promise sound impressive but it’s really simple. I make a promise, I wake up. this is where the plot thickens, the damn snooze button. The snooze button is a way of deferring a promise at the cost of possibly not keeping it at all, yes most devices allow you to snooze three times and then even the device gives up on you and that’s the point. You break enough promises and even a piece of cold technology will give up on you.
Where self-respect comes in. Promises should not be made lightly and yet we do, we all do it. If we respect the party we make the promise to we will do whatever we can to keep that promise. The same thing applies to your alarm clock, if you respect yourself enough you will wake up the first time around. Snoozing is the equivalent of telling someone “Yes, I said I would, and I promise I’ll get to it, in a bit, I promise”. Eventually, you don’t and just like your device, the human gives up on you and trust is gone. Oh my, trust just made an appearance. Yes trust and specifically trusting yourself, I have a deep set belief that waking up when you promised yourself you would, illness and exacerbating circumstances aside, you show respect for yourself, when you respect yourself you trust yourself and this is a key part of having confidence in your ability to get stuff done.
The smallest promises are the easiest to break. Choosing when to wake up is probably the smallest promise you can make to yourself. Tomorrow morning at 05:30 I will wake up and get going. Very much like obeying traffic rules when there is no one around to enforce them, you do it because you respect yourself and your environment. Break that small promise to yourself to wake up and every other promise you make can easily be broken as well. For waking up, It only takes the use of the snooze button to break that promise, just once. As with many flexibilities, it all starts small. There is no one more adept at rationalising your behaviour than you. We have the ability to rationalise poor behaviour into acceptance with a few simple pseudo-logical steps.
Pseudo-Logical-Rationalisations. I call them pseudo-logical-rationalisations because it sounds more impressive than just saying we lie to ourselves but this is what we do, we lie. But in order to swallow the lie we coat it in all sorts of biased justifications and promises that next time it will be different. Nothing like the promise of future better behaviour to appease that small voice telling you that the current behaviour is poor. If we respect someone, would we lie to them? Perhaps to spare them great pain, but in most scenarios, on a day-to-day basis, we wouldn’t so why would we have so little respect for ourselves? I believe it’s because we don’t connect this behaviour to respect, we have managed to separate respect from this specific activity of rationalising behaviour. You can test your level here by simply looking at how many backup alarms you have? Heck following this thread of pseudo-logical-rationalisation i.e. lying to ourselves the only promises we will eventually keep are Damoclian promises and these are really scary.
Damoclian promises and the effects on you. I love using a good Damoclian situation because its impact is clear to understand. A Damoclian situation is something done with the constant reminder that a horrible outcome awaits you if anything small goes wrong. A Damoclean promise is a promise made “at pain of death”, derived from the myth of the sword of Damocles. A sword hanging from a horse hair above your head while you sit on a throne, nice hey. These are promises we keep because the cost of failure is high enough that we are encouraged through fear to keep them. They are in effect forced conformance to a self-made situation, a promise that is kept by fear is not a promise at all. The end result is living in a constant state of fear that “the sword may drop” at any moment. The stress and anxiety that come with this sort of existence are quite simply not worth it and the ramifications of prolonged exposure are dangerous, to say the least. Many disguise this sort of promise as a noble sacrifice, there is nothing noble about purposefully hurting yourself, not even for a “good” reason. Please we are not talking about burning buildings here, let’s keep to the middle of life here. Deep down the realisation that this promise shouldn’t exist, that you are most likely the one who instigated its existence and that it may now have become a necessity is devastating on the psyche.
Nobody knows. That’s right, this nonsense with your alarm clock and the snooze button, no one knows it’s happening, no one knows about your backup alarms for your backup alarms. It’s all happening where no one can see you and that is the whole point. A promise kept in solitude is a fragile thing. I have always thought of self-respect as needing to be this costume you wear so that others can see you respect yourself and by default, you should be respected. I eventually grew up and found the old adage that actions speak louder than words really does have gravity. The more I started focusing on keeping promises, especially to myself, the more I trusted myself, the more confident I became in keeping promises committing myself to people and life and learning how to say no.
People respect people who respect themselves. I have this annoying habit of demeaning my achievements or being very self-deprecating, it’s something I do because I personally don’t feel like I’m enough, not sure what I should be enough for, but at least I know why. I also know I’m not the only one because I see this behaviour on a daily basis from some of the smartest, kindest and most amazing people. I believe it stems from a lack of trust in self, as if whatever you do or do could not have been good enough, and it feels that way because of a lack of trust and this could be down to something as simple as waking up when you said you would. I am lucky people see me as trustworthy and by extension respectable, I honestly believe it’s because I keep small promises to myself that no one else knows about. This starts small, for example, sitting here at 05:27 on a Saturday morning because I promised myself that I would wake up and get some work done on this article. Keeping the promise to get my wife’s car washed, get the shopping done, do some painting with the kids and sort out dinner today are in the bag because I kept this one promise to myself today, that no one could see, remind me of or enforce. I could easily have slept in as well, it is Saturday and it has been a tough week, and I deserve it, see how easy that is.
This has been a raw article and I thank you for getting to this point. September is always a difficult month for me, the change of season that should bring life and renewal, yes I live in the southern hemisphere its summer here now, doesn’t do that for me. The cycle restarting has this weird depressing effect on me that is to put it plainly, annoying. But it’s been like this for as long as I can remember and I learned to live with it. I keep waking up, I keep at the speed limit, I use my indicators, and I put the dishes away. I keep these small promises to myself because they help me keep big promises, they help me feel like I have accomplished something and that I can trust myself. One of the biggest promises I made to myself for this year is at least one article every month for 2024, this is article 9 of 12, I got to this point last year and I couldn’t finish, it felt like a loss but for some reason, me and my alarm clock feels like a 12 of 12 is possible this year and now you know about a promise I have been keeping to myself for 9 months.
That is the biggest part of all of this, the alarm clock taught me how to respect myself again. There is nothing wrong with snoozing, I am not the snooze police, but if your life feels like chaos every day, if it feels like you can’t trust yourself if it feels like you never know if you can do something. Take me up on this, set your alarm, wake up, get up and then once you have accomplished this small victory, use that as your daily foundation to say I showed up, let’s do this.
The CHAT GPT Version:
Alarms and Promises: A Connection
What do alarms and promises have in common? It may seem obscure, but there’s a link. Let’s consider a daily alarm as a promise: “I promise to wake up at this time tomorrow.” You set your alarm, and the moment it goes off, you’re meant to get up. Simple, right? But then comes the snooze button—our way of deferring the promise, risking breaking it altogether. Ignore the alarm enough, and even the technology gives up on you, just like people do when promises are repeatedly broken.
Self-respect plays a role here. Promises, even to ourselves, shouldn’t be taken lightly. If we respect ourselves, we won’t hit snooze; we’ll honor that first alarm. Snoozing is like saying, “I’ll do it later, I promise,” but often, later never comes. Each broken promise erodes trust in ourselves, and trust is foundational to confidence.
Small promises, like waking up on time, are easy to break. But doing so can set the tone for breaking larger commitments. It’s similar to following traffic rules when no one’s watching—you do it out of respect for yourself. Hitting snooze just once can open the door to rationalizing other broken promises.
We lie to ourselves with “pseudo-logical rationalizations,” justifying poor behavior with excuses like, “I’ll do better next time.” It’s easier to lie to ourselves than to others because we don’t connect these lies to self-respect. But look at how many backup alarms you set, and you’ll see the evidence of broken trust.
The most dangerous promises are Damoclean—kept out of fear of disastrous consequences, like the sword of Damocles hanging by a thread. These promises are motivated by anxiety, not respect, and they lead to constant stress, which is harmful in the long run. Fear-driven promises aren’t noble; they’re destructive.
The truth is, no one else knows about your snooze button habit. But self-respect doesn’t require an audience. Over time, I’ve learned that keeping promises to myself, like waking up on time, builds trust in myself. It’s a foundation for keeping larger commitments to others. Confidence grows from trust, and trust starts small—sometimes as small as getting out of bed when you said you would.
People respect those who respect themselves. Like many, I struggle with self-doubt and self-deprecation, but I’ve realized that this comes from not trusting myself. It can be as simple as sticking to that first alarm in the morning. Keeping small, unseen promises to myself makes me more dependable to others. For example, writing this article at 5:30 AM on a Saturday because I promised myself I would. This leads to fulfilling other commitments, like getting my wife’s car washed and spending time with my kids.
This article is raw, and September is always tough for me. Even though it’s spring here in the southern hemisphere, the cycle of renewal often feels depressing. But I’ve learned to manage by keeping small promises—like putting the dishes away or sticking to the speed limit. These little acts of self-respect help me tackle bigger goals, like writing one article per month this year. This is article 9 of 12, and unlike last year, I feel like I can finish this time.
In the end, my alarm clock taught me how to respect myself again. If life feels chaotic, if you can’t trust yourself, start small: set your alarm, wake up, and show up. Use that small victory as the foundation for your day.
Mind, on the rocks?! 