“Only Tuesday”
As an 8 year old in third grade, I had my older brother, James (affectionately called Jimmy at that time) and two neighbor girls to play with in a shallow creek just a block from our home. Back then I much preferred this and similar activities to going to school. I kind of hated school a little. Thankfully I got over that and began to develop interests in subjects and had teachers in high school that made school and learning interesting and fun. After a wonderful season as a stay at home mother, I went back to school and got my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Then I re-entered the workforce. After a time, I could truly engage in the lamentations about Mondays and the hope found in camels and their relation to Wednesdays. Fridays. Fridays are so special that even Thursdays began to have a special place in my heart because they held the hope of Fridays and their joyous promise of the glorious experience of...the Weekend.
As Americans, we live in a culture that has such ingrained concepts of Mondays, hump days, Fridays, and weekends. We endure five days of every week just to possibly enjoy the other two. After less than a few years in the workforce,I found myself living for the weekend. I can hear all the life coaches out there saying that I just don’t have a job that I love enough, because if I did then I would never work a day in my life. Under that guise, weekends wouldn’t really be a factor that held such specific meaning to me (or anyone else) anymore.
Reality tells us that not everyone has their dream job. Some people work hard each day while using their free time searching for and applying for that perfect job. Sometimes they get that job and then after a time it is no longer as fulfilling as it was in the beginning. Then the pattern of living for the weekend or days off resets. Let’s call this the Weekend Life Pattern.
Being in that pattern isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Life is a journey and not a race. We will experience many highs and lows and change is inevitable. It is part of being human to work toward something, often that working toward something means we are trying to find the just the right job and achieve our personal version of work/life balance. There is no failure in not being where you want in life or in a job or career. It’s helpful to realize that working toward something is as important as achieving something. When we live life as a race instead of a journey, we find ourselves in not only the Weekend Life Pattern but in a fairly constant state of some or all of these: dissatisfaction, anxiety, and unhealthy anticipation. I say unhealthy anticipation because when we long for something to fix or alleviate something else that is unpleasant then the state of anticipation, waiting, or longing isn't all that beneficial.
I remember getting ready for work recently and thinking with some defeat, “It’s only Tuesday.” I needed to rework that perspective to thinking that particular day was a period to work toward the new way of life that I desired as opposed to being in a rather crummy place in the Weekend Life Pattern. Even though we often need to give our perspective about work, career goals, and current circumstances a revamp; it’s ok to support your co-workers and discuss how it’s “such a Monday,” on Wednesdays we are over the hump of the week, and the ever popular TGIF. The thing to remember is that we don’t want to just live for the weekend but find meaning in each day and use the time we have to work toward goals. We need to focus on those goals and our aspirations instead of thinking, “It’s only Tuesday” or getting stuck in living for our time off.
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