What is a lesson?A lesson is a decision that compounds to make a better life. Maybe the lesson is learned, read, or dreamed. Whether or not abided, the lesson is true for life. These lessons are not original. Publishing lessons is not an act of claiming the knowledge, but clarifying it.

The tatami mat is a simple lesson. Sleep on your tatami mat, your Japanese futon.

When those years ago came with the decision to sell your bed frame to your cousin’s then-lover, after the moments passed when the dogs soiled your mattress, the decision came to not purchase a traditional bed.

Traditionally, Americans enjoy tall beds where the mattress sits atop a spring box. Perhaps a non-traditional bed could have been a European frame (low on the ground), or a Murphy bed (stowed in a pantry), or a sleeper sofa (stowed in a couch). Perhaps. But you wanted something even more non-traditional.

You had two features in mind:

* Portable. You wanted a bed that fits in your car. You are young and so you know the time will come for constant moving. You have seen your friends whose landlords force seasonal migrations, moving with the affordable rent. That time has not yet come for you. You still live at your parents. But the time will come. (Why it has not come yet, I do not know. Perhaps wives do not make off with futon-loving bachelors?)

* Uncomfortable.

It’s the latter that prompts this lesson. See, an uncomfortable bed does not mean you cannot sleep. Just the opposite. An uncomfortable bed is firm, promoting good posture and proper flow of prana, proper sleep. However, upon the morning, the uncomfortable bed rears its blessed uncomfortability. Because when you awake on a futon, you are awake. There is no grogginess. There is no sleeping-in.

Fortunately, it is not my nature to loiter on the futon. I have seen Japanese films where characters read, write, and relax on their futons, but this is no American habit of mine. No. The bed will be a bed. It will be for sleeping.

The lesson is to sleep on the bed. The challenge is that I remain in a house among other beds more enticing than my own. Hence this reminder, this lesson.

If you should go to bed on your futon, your days will start on time, your priorities will be met, and your True Self will be honored, all when you awake upon your futon. You will build mastery by doing the hard thing, the right thing.

Quit sleeping in, quit delaying the ultimate goal for the immediate comfort. It feels good to commit to your values. Now, be done with your old habits. Be done.

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