Far too many times I see on social media sites people complaining about Monday which is OK to an extent but I somehow see an importance monday has to a life, mine at least. Sure it sucks waking up in the morning after a weekend of leisure and relaxation, but for many people around the world Monday is their proof of self control and person “getting their priorities straight”.
You wake feeling like hell to go to work, the dreaded start of the week. Or maybe you wake up to go to class, even if you’ve done your homework or not. Or perhaps you have a call to make. The fact is you’re getting up and going to you destination whether you like it or not. It’s that same routine, that same norm, the one we say makes us crazy but actually proves we’re sane. What we don’t realize in accomplishing our day to day necessary activities is that we are accomplishing them. Surely sometimes it’s not the best feeling to go to work, maybe you’re hungover or got bad sleep, but you’re still accomplishing what you said you would do or go where you said you would go. For this reason, I’m thankful for Mondays.
Weekends are for fun, whether it’s relaxation or partying or spending an evening with your significant other. A person needs to do let loose, just think of the old proverb:
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
I know you’ve heard that proverb before, cry me a river. Take a look at the “extended” version.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,
All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy
When you walk into work or school on Monday, you don’t realize that you are balancing work and play, you are performing your necessary duties subconsciously. You probably take it for granted too.
What if a person starts using drugs or starts drinking heavily and comes into work a lil late on Monday. They probably think, “Oh, i’ll be late this time, it won’t happen again”. Sure, we are allowed to make a mistake here and there and but at the time of realizing, “I’m late to work because I was drinking and playing too much”, how one handles themselves after determines a good amount of their character and priorities. You take for granted all the times you were on time to work and start to see yourself doing something out of the ordinary, going against the grain. You think about that groggy feeling you have usually when you wake up for work, and realize that because you were late to work, you didn’t have that feeling and kind of miss it, as shitty as it is. That feeling is normalness. That feeling is you being responsible even after a weekend of fun.
Just like in science projects, a person needs a control. They need an unaltered instance or variable that they can compare to. The reason this post is about “Monday” is that I consider Monday my control variable. Yours might be something else. I’ve definitely felt groggy, tired, etc… on a Monday but I’ve always made it. Before work it was homework, I always did my homework, even if I had to stay up till 4am at night. You need something to relate to because how else would a person recognize truly for themselves that they are “slipping”or that their play time is catching up with them? For example, let’s say an alcoholics life on a Tuesday night was doing his/her homework. That’s being normal. If someone asked them on Tuesday “What are you up to tonite?” they would respond, “The usual”, referring to homework. Then they start to drink more and find themselves not studying on Tuesday every now and then. Before you know it, “the usual” on Tuesday is now drinking. Had the person stopped and realized their life was going off course from their usual “homework tuesdays”, they would re-think taking a sip of that bottle. Now this is just a crazy scenario, but the thing you should take is to think of something you do or used to do, look at your life now, and ask yourself if you’re content.
Don’t think it’s only drugs, alcohol, or stuff like that. It can be anything. In high school I had many friends and hung out with them all the time. We would skate, go to Del Taco, go to each others houses and play video games, etc…Then in sophmore year I got my first girlfriend. We hung out all the time, we were practically inseparable. I remember one day coming home and my mom saying, “Son, don’t neglect your friends. They used to come over all the time but I haven’t seen them in forever. They’ve been with you since day one and ever since you’ve had your girlfriend, you’ve lost sight of that”. That really hit me. I looked at my day to day activities, from after school to weekends and it was all with my girlfriend. I had strayed away too far from normalness. I had a new norm, and that was hanging out with my girlfriend. I asked myself if I was content with my current situation and the answer was “no”, and that’s when I decided I needed to take less time with the girlfriend and more time with my friends. We’ve all probaby been here before, I call it “first girlfriend syndrome”.
As I stand now, I am happy with my life and the way things are. My normalness is what I want it to be. Just make sure you are content with yours. I’ll keep doing my thing, I’ll still play on weekends, I’ll keep having fun, I’ll still make it to work on Mondays, but every now and then take a look around you and analyze. Sometimes you gotta wake up and smell the coffee.