What Gets You Up In The Morning?

March has rolled in. My fantasy league baseball draft is just over a week away (as is March Madness).  I started dieting for the 4,933rd time on Monday, and for the first time in my life I’m spending the spring months working full time.  Life seems to be moving along at a nicely. I have no real complaints.

Still, my mornings lately have brought with them nagging questions: What compelling reason is there to get out of bed? What do I have to look forward to?

I’m afraid I haven’t had a good answer.

I recognize that I am blessed exceedingly.  I married to a good woman. We have a delightful son (and a daughter on the way).  I’m a well paid fledgling attorney at a firm that respects the work/life balance better than any I know.  I have an HDTV with DVR and a gas grill on my patio. By all accounts, I enjoy far more comforts than I deserve, and by all appearances I couldn’t want for anything more (except to lose those 20 extra pounds).

Yet none of this seems like it gives me reason to be anxious to get up in the morning or to be excited about the day ahead when I go to bed at night. I feel like I’m missing something (besides my Playstation 2—which I sold before Christmas).

My growing suspicion lately has been that the only real happiness and satisfaction in day to day life is to be found in becoming--and becoming more like God.  My suspicion is that to be God like, to possess His attributes, is to be happy.  Absent this, everything else is merely a diversion, a sometimes pleasant diversion perhaps, but still a diversion from what should be my primary objective.

But even this thought isn’t terribly comforting to me, nor does it entirely make sense.  It doesn’t explain for me why families and eternal relationships (why companionship in general) is essential.  It also still leaves me wanting for something more to get me to look forward to getting up in the morning, and in some respects even makes it harder.

So perhaps this post is really just a plea for help, hoping someone can point out to me what it is I’m missing.*


* Just for the record, most of my habits seem to be in order—save for my penchant for late night snacking and leaving Jared’s closet door unlocked.  This is not to say that the answer might not lie in improvement of some habits, but just to make the reader aware that I find myself in this dilemma even after making a reasonably diligent effort to keep to the right habits.