If you're a digital alarm clock user like me, you've long become accustomed to "settling." You know what I mean. You sacrifice beauty for technical bells and whistles. You don't expect your digital alarm clock to look pretty, and you don't expect it to be remarkable. You just hope that whatever high tech gears and gizmos they've put in there will do their job and wake you up each morning.

Until a friend showed me his Digital Zen Alarm Clock, I thought I was content with my own digital alarm. It did its job. Sure, it was ugly as sin, and I usually had to buy a new one every few months. Another problem I have had with digital alarm clocks (besides them being so ugly) is that even expensive ones rarely last. I always have to replace mine after just a few months of use.

At a dinner party at his house the host showed me his Digital Zen Alarm Clock. I had been complaining about the quality of timepieces in general, including watches and alarm clocks. He said, "You've got to see this clock. It's different."

The Digital Zen Alarm Clock looks a little strange if you're used to a simple radio alarm clock or a plain digital travel alarm. First of all, it comes in a pretty hardwood case. Secondly, the Digital Zen Alarm Clock has a little Tibetan style chime in the box. "Am I looking at a clock or a musical instrument?" I asked my friend.

"Both!" he said.

He proceeded to set the alarm on the clock and told me to wait to see what happened. At this point, I thought he'd been partying too hard and maybe he had had a little too much of the fine cabernet he had been serving that evening. He wanted me to stand there and listen to his alarm clock go off? How nerdy was that?

But this was a good friend, and I trusted his instincts when he got excited about something. He had turned me onto many cool products before, appliances and other items I never would have heard about on my own. Over the years he had recommended many things to me that ended up being useful, fun, or just plain cool.

So I waited.

The alarm clock soon went off. I heard the clock ring the little chime in its box, and it was much clearer and prettier in tone than I would have guessed from the small size of the chime. What a lovely sound!

My friend explained that he wakes up to that every day, and it helps him to wake up gradually and emerge from slumber in a peaceful way. He showed me how the chime gradually rings more frequently after its first chime. Over about ten minutes the chime picks up speed until it rings every few seconds. Even at the end of its snooze cycle, the Digital Zen Alarm Clock chime never sounds frantic. It's still a peaceful, calming sound.

I tried to persuade my friend to let me borrow his clock, but he wouldn't part with his Digital Zen Alarm Clock even for a day. Now there was a man who really loved his clock! "I've had this clock for over a year and I'm not giving it to you."

So I had to order my own.

After using my new Digital Zen Alarm Clock for several months, I've noticed how my emotional tone has really changed for the better. I don't wake up feeling panicked and disrupted like I did when I was using a different alarm clock. And I find it easy to relax there in my bed as the chimes softly go off in the morning, maintaining that delicate state between waking and sleeping, and using those precious moments to recall some of my dreams from the previous night. I could never remember my dreams before. Now it's easy to do so because the Digital Zen Alarm Clock wakes me up peacefully.