Wakefulness Comes Before Light

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.

Thoreau means something simple and difficult: the sun rises whether you notice or not. Wakefulness is not something that happens to you at dawn. It is a choice made in the dark, in the minutes before. You wake to the day you are already attending to. Not the day that arrives, but the one you have already decided to meet. This morning, before anything else, decide what you will actually pay attention to.