You and Your Alarm Clock
If you use an alarm clock, do you trust it to wake you up in the morning?
But before you answer, how did you interpret that question?
A. When you set an alarm, do you trust your alarm clock to go off at the right time?
B. When your alarm goes off, do you trust your alarm clock to ring loud enough to wake you up?
Or C. When you hear your alarm clock ringing, do you trust yourself to get up instead of hitting the snooze button?
I was always afraid of my alarm clock dying in the middle of the night and not going off the next morning. This is probably why I use my phone as my alarm clock and ensure it is sufficiently charged the night before. With the classic alarm clock, there's just no way I could tell how much battery it has left, and with that uncertainty, I can never be sure that it will go off when I need it to.
But there were a few occasions where I completely slept through my alarm. Oddly enough, I don't mind them at all. Aside from having to rush my morning and apologize for being late, I completely accept that it's my fault and shrug it off. Yet, why am I so afraid of my alarm clock dying in the middle of the night and not going off when I need it to? Isn't the end result the same?
It's almost as if I'm telling my alarm clock, "It's okay if I screw up and fail to wake up, but it's not okay if you screw up and didn't try to wake me up." What's with the double standard? From my alarm clock's perspective, I must be a monster. Think about it, I tell my alarm clock to wake me up at 6am every day. But every day at 6am, I would grudgingly look at my alarm clock with disdain and hit the snooze button. What a thankless job my alarm clock has, and it has to deal with that kind of treatment every single day, how awful is that?
I wouldn't want to work as my alarm clock, no way. But following this line of thinking, how can I make my alarm clock feel appreciated and what would my alarm clock's dream job be like? An owner who sets a morning alarm and wakes up with a smile thanking the alarm clock? An owner who hardly snoozes or looks at the alarm clock with distaste? An owner who tolerates the alarm clock if it ran out of juice in the middle of the night?
Why don't I try that? Why don't we all give it a try and become better owners of our alarm clocks?