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The early bird catches the worm, says the English proverb whose Hungarian synonime adds a different sence to the English one's meaning. The Hungarian version translating it word by word sounds like this: "The one who rises early happens to find gold." When I was a child I often let my thoughts dwell on the problem: what sort of gold can the early riser find. Is it a kind of treasure or real golden coins or the rising Sun' s gold? As I grew older I realized it must be a symbolic saying. The gold must mean some advantage for the early risers.

First of all examine the reasons why people do not like getting up early. Separate the late risers into two groups. The first one is the group of those who get up late just because they find it comfortable and do it whitout any reasonable cause. Call them lazies later on. The second group is the group of those who stay bed late for acceptable reasons: heaving their duties until late at night, night workers, long day workers, who can hardly afford to have a rest and leave the bed later only on their days off or perhaps artists whose way of life is different. They would earn a separate category so do university students but there can be lazies among them as well. People belonging to the second group have their good reasons for using their daily hours for sleeping otherwise they are not capable of working efficiently.

Those who prefer early rising really deserve the "treasures" they find. They can enjoy the sunrise and join in the different processes of the day at the beginning but the lazies happen to find themselves in the middle of a bustle. Old timers especially in the countryside were said to rise with the hens and go to bed with them. For the modern man it may sound rediculous. The changes of darkness and lightness, mornings and evenings, dawns and nightfalls are all the same for him. He ends up his day whenever he finds himself at the end of his overtime then rushes home, skips supper and flings himself onto bed and next day everything starts from the beginning. Perhaps he gets up early but it is not the kind of early rising that I could accept beneficial.

Every adult needs 6-9 hours sleep a day. Certain people are satisfied with less, they are enviable, others need more. If one finds his need he can arrange his own schedule finding the best and earliest hour for getting up. After the essential amount of sleep he will find himself fresh and ready to face the day. The lazies deprive themselves of the chance to get into the day as it starts and to get to the natural flow of it.

Certainly I do not want to say I never admired and enjoyed the moments doing nothing just idling away my time but simply belonging to the lazies’ group does not help to form and keep a strong personality. They are more or less lazies in other fields of life. Simply they are wasting their time they could use for more important things. The wise take full advantage of their time.