I’m actually going to go ahead and give this one to me, because if you can’t have a laugh at your own expense you shouldn’t be laughing at anyone else.

For many years I had trouble sleeping. I eventually did get to sleep every night, but it was usually a struggle to get there. I would often lie there, thinking about what I had done that day, or about what I was meant to be doing tomorrow. I’d think about my stories, and about what I had eaten for dinner. And yeah, sometimes – like the guy here – I’d be counting farmyard animals until even they had gone to sleep.

Silly as it may sound, I never actually knew how to get to sleep. Perhaps I did when I was a child, but somewhere along the line I forgot. When I was in my thirties I discussed this with my wife at the time. I explained to her that I would just lie there in bed, staring into the darkness, waiting for sleep to take me. I didn’t find it particularly funny, but she really laughed hard that night.

Apparently I was doing it wrong all along. She told me to try closing my eyes. That seemed like an odd concept to a fully-grown adult. That act felt like more of an effort in the search for sleep than simply letting my eyes fall shut naturally… but I tried it, and I haven’t looked back since.

So, you’re never too old to learn something new.