Amon Xiong

---

I have been waking up at 5am every weekend for the past three years, and this is the valuable lesson I learned from doing so.
Before revealing this, allow me to tell you why I wake up at 5am on weekends.

I am a part of the first generation born in Australia by migrates who were forced to flee a war-torn country in search of sanctuary. My parents along with many others, who were lucky enough to have made it into refugee camps, were flown to Australia. Their country was left behind, their family separated by the war, but their determination lived on. My parents came here with no knowledge if Australia was the right choice, and if anything would come out of it; so they did what they knew best, to survive.
They started out working odd jobs with minimum pay, developing themselves slowly to now owning and operating their own agriculture business supplying fresh green produce to local grocers, as well as selling them at local markets (Salamanca and Hobart Farm Gate Market).

This leads me to explain why I’ve been waking up at 5am every weekend.

You see Salamanca market operates on Saturdays while the Farm Gate market operates on Sundays. The preparations of the market stalls take time and coordination for them to be ready for sale when customers arrive at 7am on Saturday and 8:30am on Sunday. So waking up at 5 am is essential in making sure the market stall is prepared for sale.
This routine is maintained throughout the year for all weekends.
In fact, this routine has been so ingrained into my body, the weekends I get to sleep in, while on a holiday or working on-call, I feel more exhausted and less productive.
You may question why sleeping in made me feel more exhausted and less productive when sleeping in would mean I had more hours of rest. You are correct on that, but you’re missing the point. My body had become so accustomed to waking up early that the extra hours were more negative than positive. To me, I had just lost crucial hours. To which I could’ve contributed it to more productive and meaningful activities like if I was to wake up at 5am for the market.

Now for the valuable lesson, I learned.

For a long time, the routine of waking up early on weekends became a part of me that I never realised I should have viewed as a habit instead.
Habit builds character and integrity, allowing one to perform crucial actions while expending a small amount of conscious effort.
Routine, on the other hand, are repetitive actions done in specific orders and require a high amount of conscious effort.
To change it from thinking of it as a habit instead of a routine, it will positively influence one’s mental and physical state during the activity and long after its finished. Allowing yourself to reserve energy for higher focus consuming activities.
It has taught me, and I hope you too, how compelling a habit can be. Whether good or bad, it will significantly impact your trajectory in life.

You can find the poem that inspired this here.

---