When I go to sleep each night, I simply must be facing the closest wall. This ritual, as far as I remember, spawned from my childhood when I was extraordinarily afraid of the dark. I figured that if I didn’t see the monsters, they wouldn’t see me. The best way to keep from seeing them without smothering under the covers was to just make sure I faced the wall before I went to sleep. Fast forward about 15 years and I’m still doing it.

This semester, I decided to see whether or not I could manage to go to sleep without facing the wall, so I forced myself to lay on my side that doesn’t face the wall. I laid there for about an hour and a half and finally dozed off. I thought I’d won, but I woke up about 15 minutes later, I was looking square at the wall. So much for change.