The Morning Myth

CHAPTER 12 Night Owl Discrimination and Sleep-Shaming: The Time Has Come to End Discrimination Against Night Owls

When I said that early birds get the worm because society has the system rigged in their favor, or rather quoted the same, I wasn’t kidding. Early risers in our society have an artificial advantage by virtue of the fact that they’re most awake and alert at precisely the same times that work and school start in the ancient, Agrarian Age schedule we’re still using in this day and age.

If I were to get to my office using a horse and buggy, people would look at me like I’m crazy and the police would likely order me off the road. But starting work at the same time as people did hundreds, and even thousands, of years ago? Nah, no problem! Go right ahead, sir!

This is the very definition of insanity. It’s also largely at the root of why night owls suffer such high levels of discrimination in the workplace and elsewhere, when we should be ridiculing them for following such an ancient practice in modern times.

To make matters worse, we have to suffer with it quietly. I know I have. Night owls can’t run and call some equal opportunity commission or have a civil rights lawyer take their case on contingency. No, we just have to take it, stuck in a world that’s run to a large degree by early risers who believe that anyone who isn’t one is somehow flawed or inferior.

Poorna Bell, writing in the Huffington Post, said that a friend once told her, “You can sleep when you’re dead,” ...