“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.” ~Eckhart Tolle
Have you ever hit the snooze button? I’m guessing you have at least once. And when you hit it— if you were awake enough to even think about it—you were probably happy knowing that you’d be getting a few more minutes of sleep, right?
You may have been dreaming a really great dream or were super comfortable in your bed, and you just weren’t ready to wake up. Maybe you had a hard time getting to sleep the night before or you just didn’t get enough sleep.
In any case, waking up would be painful, right? So it makes perfect sense that you wanted to put off feeling that pain.
But what if this were a metaphor for your life? What if each time you hit the snooze button and chose to stay asleep, you pushed away precious opportunities to wake up? And what if each time you pushed the button, you were actually postponing your life? Would you still push it?
I did. For many years. For most of my life, actually. I had gotten into the habit of hearing the wake-up call and hitting the snooze button. It wasn’t a convenient time, or I was too scared to do anything about it, or I just wanted to ignore it.
I continually hit the snooze button when I said no to opportunities to stretch out of my comfort zone and soar into a new life: an acceptance into a great college, a scholarship to study in France, and an invitation to speak at my college graduation.
I hit the snooze button because I was too afraid. I wasn’t ready to wake up and start living fully.
Ignoring the wake-up calls became such a habit that I eventually didn’t want to leave my bed at all. I wanted to continue sleeping. It was safe, warm, and comfortable there. I could pull the covers over my head and pretend that the real world didn’t exist.
I could pretend that it was perfectly okay that I was sleeping my life away.
But I could only ignore the alarms and my inner voice urging me to wake up for so long. Because two years ago, I received a wake-up call that didn’t come with a snooze button: I learned that my first love had killed himself.
In one moment, my entire world changed. I felt so much pain and so much sadness, and I couldn’t push it away. I couldn’t pretend that this wasn’t happening. I tried to go to bed and pull the covers up, but the grief went with me. I couldn’t escape it.
While we hadn’t spoken in many years, memories of our time together came rushing back. I remembered us when we were younger—full of life and promise and joy and vibrancy. I hadn’t felt any of those things for so long.
I had been too busy ignoring the wake-up calls and hitting the snooze button—trying not to feel or stretch myself.
But in this moment of extreme grief came extreme clarity: I knew that I needed to make a drastic change. My life wasn’t over yet, and it was time that I stopped acting like it was.
In that moment, I chose to throw away the snooze button. I chose to start saying yes to each opportunity that came my way: a writing career, radio interviews, and new friendships—things that I most likely would have shied away from and said no to in the past, I began to embrace. And it’s been wonderful (for the most part).
Because here’s the thing that we don’t always hear about when we read these uplifting stories from people who have overcome hardship: Waking up can be painful. It can be hard. It is definitely easier to stay asleep and continue sleepwalking through life.
Living consciously is not all roses and chocolate and anything else that we all love. There is a reason why many of us choose to remain asleep. Waking up means that we feel everything—the good and the bad.
Waking up means that we are aware of the many horrific things that are happening in the world, but we’re also aware of all of the beautiful things. Waking up means that we have to take responsibility for our lives and start moving toward our purpose. And all of this can be scary and exhausting. It’s perfectly understandable that we hit the snooze button.
But what I experienced with this wake-up call and this period of grieving is that going through the pain is a necessary part of moving into the joy.
Life is filled with good and bad and everything in between. And it’s only by choosing to wake up that we can really experience it fully.
I received a jolting wake-up call when my first love died. But I had been receiving smaller wake-up calls for years before this. We all have. And most of us choose to hit the snooze button because we aren’t ready to wake up.
The last two years have been some of the hardest moments that I have ever experienced, but they have also been the most beautiful moments.
For the first time in my life, I am wide awake—I feel everything. I am consciously creating my life, and I am truly living. I am no longer okay with postponing my life, and I have thrown away my snooze button.
If you are hearing the wake-up calls now, please don’t ignore them. You don’t have to wait until your wake-up call becomes a full-blown alarm. You don’t have to hit the snooze button any longer.
It’s true that waking up can be painful, but it’s also such a beautiful way to live. And it sure beats sleeping your life away.
Lori’s Note: Jodi’s launching a powerful new eCourse on 10/1 called Coming Back to Life. It’s a 6-week course that will help you feel more passionate and alive, with a 150-page workbook, 35 contributors, (including me), 9 guided meditations, over 30 videos, weekly chat sessions, and more.
She’s generously offered to give away 2 free courses to Tiny Buddha readers. Comment on the post for a chance to win! You can enter until midnight PST on Sunday, September 16th. If you’d like to purchase the course now, and receive $175 in bonus gifts, you can get $20 off using the code “backtolife.” (Full disclosure: I am a huge fan of Jodi’s work, and I am an affiliate for her course).
UPDATE: This winners for this giveaway have been chosen: Beth Gallagher and Dawn M-W. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha for free daily or weekly emails and to learn about future giveaways!
Photo by gogoloopie
About Jodi Chapman
Jodi Chapman is the author of the inspirational blog, Soul Speak and the bestselling Soulful Journals series, co-authored with her husband, Dan Teck. If you’re ready to bring your dream to life, click here to learn more about her Soul Shakers’ Mastermind Group. Enter “tinybuddha” at checkout & receive a free Dream-Planning session ($147 value)!
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 
Thanks so much for waking me up! I’ve been hearing the wake-up call for far too long,too! And far too often I had finally managed to get up… Just to return to “bed” a few minutes later because i didn’t have the courage to face the fear! This has to stop! Thank you for reminding me!
This sounds like a great course. Please enter me in the drawing.
Meeting challenges head-on is always rewarding! I would love to join in on the course…
Jodi, thanks a lot for this post, the snooze button is a great metaphor for our fear and discourage in all day life. To learn more about the wake up call, I’d love to win one of the courses 🙂
What a great post! Enter me in your drawing please!
I’m about to take a drastic new path in life. After a year of digging, tilling, and watering I’m about to take a plunge. I would love to win the drawing and be a part of the class.
I’d love to enter the drawing. I quit ‘hitting the snooze button on life’ recently and am experiencing the good and bad that comes with it. Sometimes I want to hide under the covers because at times it feels so hard but I keep pushing on, knowing it’s the only way to live life. Definitely feels like it’s getting easier at times but sometimes the progress made equals a step back. I’d like to keep positive and have the faith that all will be well. A course would be great! Thanks for the great article.
Dear Lori,
I have already dived into my personal course of living fully and I would greatly welcome any source of inspiration. This course sounds like is a great tune for waking up to!
Love Jodi, she always writes so beautifully from her heart. She is one of the shining starts of the blogosphere. Thanks for this Lori.
Love Elle
xoxo
A perfect metaphor to encourage me to wake up without the alarm each day…grateful for my life, my friends and my loving partner.
Dear Lori, I would love to be entered in the drawing. I am on a downward spiral in life it seems and this course seems to be a source or ticket upwards. Thank you and Namaste!
Hey enter me into that drawing.
For me I was sleeping through life with crime. When I was younger, I got expelled from 2 highschools, I was in a gang, and I was always in some kind of legal trouble or other. I just fell into it and it was so easy. I could just pass off everyone who were rule followers as lame, and then just do whatever the gang leader said. It was an easy way to not think and just float through life half asleep.When I got a girl pregnant and my first daughter was born — that was the great awakening. Suddnely everything just changed in my head and I turned everything around. It was very painful, both mentally and physically (when you leave a gang they either kill you or beat you out — I fell into the latter category, but that still put me in the hospital for awhile), but I had woken up and I no longer wanted to be this half-asleep, floating thorugh life, criminal dude. I had a daughter now. It’s been over 10 years now and I have a job, 2 daughters, I’m married, I own a house, all the looks of a normal, well adjusted dude, lol, but it was a tough road that started with waking the heck up!! Great post.
Like stretching the muscles… i’m stretching mine a little at a time and it’s articles like this that encourage me to keep on stretching till the pain subsides.
I’m hoping to win! I’ve never won anything in my life.
Thanks for the reminder to stop putting life on hold! Fear and resistance delay me, I believe, but I know I have the power to open up to it fully and with an open heart.
I am trying not to hit the snooze button…
I would love to be entered — I need something to wake me up and give me a kick in the pants! Fear constantly gets in the way for me. I love Tiny Buddha – it really makes me think! And I know I could benefit greatly from this course!
love the post…very inspirational..and it is like a perfect timing..i think this article is my wake up call to embrace life…each day is an opportunity… please enter me for the free giveaway also 🙂
This really spoke to me; I have been in a very similar place the last two years, and even though it has been incredibly wonderful, it’s also been incredibly scary.
That course sounds like an amazing gift! Thank you for the post. Even though life is moving fast and a lot is getting accomplished, it does not mean that I am living fully.
Inspirational and so true! I ‘woke up’ about a year ago, having spent my whole life hitting the snooze button. Yes, it would’ve been safe and comfortable to stay where I was in my little rut, but when I think of everything I would’ve missed out on (and that’s only in a year – who know’s what’s yet to come!) I wouldn’t change a moment of it. DO IT everyone! 🙂
Fantastic and inspiring post – thank you!!
i just started reading this blog a couple weeks ago, but my curiosity has been fulfilled. i am loving these posts, and i feel like someone is just following me around and writing about my life haha.
Please enter me to win the new eCourse called Coming Back to Life.
I’m new to Tina Buddha, I stumbled on to it by accident. I feel like it’s been God sent, and it has me waking up to the possibilities of life. Thank you for your article, it adds to all the new stuff I’m already learning. It’s quite powerful and most of us are asleep until something happens in our life to wake us up. I’m trying to be wide awake and I just want to say have a wonderful day to anyone who reads my post. Love ya
This post definitely is about me. I never saw avoidance of opportunity as “hitting the snooze button” but I can see the metaphor a bit. I have spent my life so far avoiding things that are outside of my comfort zone.
Thank you for this post. It’s amazing when you finally realize that you’ve been snoozing through life and have to ‘wake up’, when you enter that state of acceptance, then things just seem to fall into place; each day can surprise us with a new gift. For too long I let myself get held back by fear, sank into the comfort of contentment and spiraled into frustration mainly because I have not achieved my goals. I always imagined how my life would be AFTER I achieved those goals and failed to realize that life is NOW, it’s everything that’s happening while I work hard in order to pursue the things I want. I am now gaining a new perspective but each day is still hard. I’ve opened up to my family and asked for continuous support and that has been very helpful (amazing what a few encouraging words in the morning can do for the rest of your day), and I’m frequenlty reading articles like this one (I used to be 100% against self-help media thinking I could do everything by myself…mistake), and just taking it one day at a time, focusing mainly on my goals and trying to be faithful to my dreams instead of my fears. So, again, thank you for this post, it’s little gifts like these that help me go on. Good luck to everyone else!
Thank you for your great post, it is true, I do too have to embrace my opportunities and hope for the best and be ready to feel the good and the bad…but ultimately, feel something.
I am grateful for opening my email this morning. Isn’t it funny how just what we need to hear is so often right in front of us. I really needed to read this post! I’ve been hiding and fearful for too long! Thank you for this thought provoking piece!
Thank you for this article. I found myself sleeping through a large portion of my life – the vast majority of my 20s when people should be living life and finding out who they really are – and it was extremely difficult to stop hitting that snooze button. At times it seemed pointless. Life had passed me by, why worry about trying to get it back now? I have grown more in the last 6 years than I think I had in the first 30. It is amazing how much more vibrant life is. Sure, it is painful at times, and difficult, and at times I do want to crawl under the covers and go back to sleep. But once you see the light, it is not possible to do so.
Thank you for putting this into words in such a beautiful way. This helps me not only remember where I came from and will never go back to – it also helps me realize how far I’ve come and allows me to be proud of that.
Thank you.
I would also like to be entered to win the new Ecourse. I have felt for too long that I have been living in the sailor’s equivalent of the doldrums where the winds of change are constantly shifting and not allowing me to fill my life’s sails and move in a new direction. I feel this course could be that much needed wind. Mary
Would love to win the course. Please enter me in the drawing.
I so need this…and though everyday I fight the hand that reaches for the snooze I can’t seem to win…..I know that there is a mastery to this, but I can’t seem to unlock it! Please!
Thank you….it took this article to make me realize what I have been going through…kind of waiting for the next thing to happen or to just leave this existence all together. “I have become comfortably numb….”
Thank you for this great post. It hit a little too close to home for me – many times in recent months, I have literally hit the snooze button, unwilling to get out of bed and take advantage of new opportunities or live my life fully because I was overwhelmed or scared and couldn’t find the energy to deal with that. I’m working toward changing my mindset now and reading about your experience and your words of encouragement has been quite reassuring.
Wow, I feel this post was written for me. I am struggling to wake up and find my way. Thanks for this inspiring post
I can full heartedly agree with your message here. It can be hard to be awake and taking it ALL in but it so unbelievably worth it. We’ll also be in a position to help others who also have opened their eyes. We aren’t alone in the journey.
Although I enjoy all blogs on here, this one really resonated with me. My dad was diagnosed with cancer 3 years ago, and during his treatments, I found myself waking up… having those conversations that needed to be had – not just with him, but others, also trying to figure out my priorities (stopping the inertia of my hard-partying lifestyle), saying goodbye to friends that no longer fit in with my re-discovered values, trying to understand what fulfills me, etc.
Since my dad died a few months ago, I feel myself resorting back to my old ways. Even though I remember the lessons and the cues he provided to me, specifically in his words, ‘If you’re not happy, you have to change the way you live’, I’m not carrying on with what I started. I don’t want his lessons and what I forced myself to do to fade away. It’s funny, I acknowledge this is happening, but I still don’t do anything about it, except hit the snooze button – again.
I would really value this 6 week course, as would everyone that comments. Please consider me for what I think would be a reawakening and a kick in the butt that I need to move on, up, forward…..
And, thank you for sharing your story.
I appreciate having received this today. My snooze button is perpetually pushed, and I know this need to change to allow me to truly live. Thanks for the reminder.
Thanks! I need to get rid of my snooze button too!
This post really resonates with me. I’ve been feeling lately like I haven’t been fulling living my life, and instead I’m just going through a series of motions that I repeat everyday. I don’t want to spend (waste) my time like this anymore. Thanks for the opportunity to win a spot in this course!
“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.” I am guilty of this.
I came across this at a perfect time, when I am working towards waking up – and staying awake! Thank you
My awakening, though I’m struggling with it. Started back in february when I lost and left a relationship that was very important to me. The road hasn’t been easy, I struggle to let go everyday. But I’m working on reopening my heart and become vunerable to pain and happiness. I’ve been trying to let go of old prejudices and open myself to new and amazing experiences that I would’ve scoffed at before. I’m also re-exploring parts of me that have laid dormant. A lot of my life, I’ve been on Autopilot. Just going with a flow, but closing my heart and soul off. Letting other people with their desires define my life. That tendency is still very strong in me, but I’m working on changing that.
Hi Jodi,
I completely agree with the message of this post, as I too went through a rough time for the past two years dealing with a significant break up, and then being diagnosed with an illness. I appreciate how vulnerable you have been to share this story, and send you love in return. I think your words and story have given many of us, including me, to continuously embrace our pain, experience life fully, and make choices towards our own happiness. Thank you.
Sahil
I can’t believe how much this article is so spot on to what I have been doing in my life. It’s sort of painful to admit it which also seems to make it easier to keep thinking tomorrow….will be different. But, it’s been pretty painful avoiding too…really painful actually. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Thank you do much!! Thid post has opened my eyes so much. Ive been hitting the snooze button for the past four years of my life. Its time to change and go forward!!!! Thanks again for the inspiration and courage
Jodi, this is truly an inspirational post. Thanks so much for sharing. It truly resonated with me and it’s exactly what I needed to read today.
Sometimes timing is everything, and this post was just the thing I needed to hear this morning.
Amazing – as usual, this is exactly what I needed today! There is construction going on next door, making it impossible to sleep past 8, and yet I still thought it would be a good idea to reset my clock for 9 instead of waking up and doing something I had planned and been looking forward to – all because it was more comfortable to just stay in bed. I regretted it as soon as I got out of bed; should have listened to my inner voice. Thank you for reminding me!
It is a relief to hear that waking up can be painful…knowing that makes it easier to deal with.