How do we get our bedtime back without a job telling us?

Hodja had a donkey. It woke every morning at the same hour. Not from discipline — from the neighbor's rooster, crowing at dawn without fail. One week the neighbor sold the rooster at market. The donkey stood at the gate all morning. It would not work. It would not rest. It waited for a sound that would never come again. The villagers said the donkey had lost its mind. Hodja said, 'The donkey is fine. It is only waiting for someone else's voice to start its day.' You are the donkey at the gate. The job used to crow — the alarm, the shift, the commute — and your body simply obeyed. Now the rooster is gone, and you wait for a sound that isn't coming. That is not laziness. That is a good animal missing its cue. This is why energy and mood drift when the workday disappears — your body lost its timer, and no timer means no rhythm. The fix isn't willpower. It's building a new cue, together, so nobody has to be their own rooster alone. If the low mood or exhaustion goes on for weeks no matter what you try, that's worth talking through with a doctor or counselor, not just a schedule chart.