Why You Don’t Like Mondays, Yet Love Fridays
Turn the clock back a few centuries and it was normal to believe the world was flat. It was also normal for the majority of your children not to live past the age of five. Normal is not necessarily good, and certainly doesn’t always equate to good enough.
Tell Me Why I Don’t Like Mondays
Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats made the famous song, Tell Me Why I Don’t Like Mondays in 1979, about the Cleveland Elementary School Shooting in San Diego by Brenda Spencer. When asked why she carried out the shooting, Spencer is reported to have answered “I don’t like Mondays… this livens up the day”.
Many of the readers here will, like Spencer, be wrinkle-nosed at the mention of Monday morning. Few of you will have shot up any schools as a result though.
In this famous song, Geldof poses the question – why? Here is my answer:
The One Who Hates Mondays Loves Fridays
When I walk around the city of Sydney on Friday afternoon, I see crowds of people spilling out of offices and into bars, pubs and clubs. Friday night is busy in the city, always with a drunken mob piling over the streets.
I walk around quite sober with my shorts and hoody, usually a stark contrast to the corporates and trades letting off steam after another gruelling week.
TGIF Culture
Thank God It’s Friday! They all bellow with raised cups and cheery grins. For many of them I imagine Friday is circled on the calendar and is slowly edged towards throughout the week with huge excitement and anticipation, in a way it once did for me.
Excitement for Friday is higher when the weekend is great, but also when Monday to Thursday are dreary and devoid of flavor. For many, Monday looms as a foreboding needle jab every week, and Friday is the release.
Don’t Go To Switzerland On Sundays
A few years ago I was visiting Switzerland – my travel companions and I were roaming the streets looking for places to eat and shop, but hardly anything was open. It took some time to realise that Switzerland, beautiful as it is, is not one of the most exciting places in the world at the best of times.
Let alone on Sundays – and is it turned out, the day was Sunday. The day of the week only became apparent to us as we walked around and asked why everything was shut.
When you travel, the concept of time changes as you change environments. Every day is more or less the same, they meld together into one synchronous flow, unlike routine work and home life. As travellers, we were operating in a different sense of time to the residents who were not on holiday.
COVID Lockdowns
If you experienced lockdown during COVID-19, you would have felt quite similar. With no ability to go out on Friday night or into the office Monday morning, Saturday would have felt like Tuesday, and Tuesday like Friday, and Friday like Monday.
There is no rise and fall of the week in this ‘melded’ style of living.
There are in fact many people who live this way every day. I got used to this pattern during COVID-19, and became even more self-directed with my work, which meant my schedule was more fluid and not broken down into ‘work days’ and weekends.
When you live an aligned life, you don’t celebrate like a maniac every Friday night, and dread your existence on Sunday evening. Each of those days is quite similar – I write these blog posts on Sundays for example, but don’t consider them just ‘work’. In fact, my work is work, but is also a hobby, in the same way we expect an athlete or musician to thoroughly enjoy what they do.
Each day holds value. Each day I get to ‘play’.
Most People Experience Their Weeks As A One-Night Stand With A Friday Orgasm
If you don’t enjoy the journey, your week is like a finite game, where you are only chasing the outcome of the journey being over. That is, if you don’t enjoy your weeks, all you think about is them ending. ‘TGIF’ culture is actually representative of people who want nothing more than 71% of their time to be over…
That is not an ideal way to live! It’s as if your life is a one-night stand every week, instead of a continual loving relationship with time. Instead of caring about the time your with, you’re just after the fireworks ending.
What Victor Frankl called ‘Sunday Neurosis’ – that Sunday evening feeling of angst and emptiness – as well as the Monday morning lethargy, is the walk of shame after the fireworks are over.
People Who Enjoy What They Do Enjoy The Journey. Every Day Is The Weekend.
If you live for Friday night and dread Monday morning, it is a sign that you are not where you should be, and that right now, you are burning time. There is an alternative, and plenty of people who enjoy and appreciate each and every day.
Life is not a weekly orgasm. It is a long and sustained relationship – not without it’s small fireworks and downs, but a journey you always love and appreciate.
There Is Nothing Wrong With Working ‘9-5’
Don’t look for excuses. There is no good reason for maintaining six-out-of-ten life. Elon Musk and Oprah Winfrey have never had more hours in their week than you – they just use that time differently. That’s not to say either of the two is happy, but they are certainly effective.
Just as they’re effective with their time for the purpose of business and impact, you need to be effective with your time and use it to create a fulfilling life. You can work 9-5, have a job working for ‘the man’ and still love Monday just as much as Friday.
And Don’t Say ‘It’s Not Possible For Me’ or That ‘It’s Normal To Hate Mondays’
You just haven’t seen enough people for who this is the case.
I’m sure most people love Fridays and holidays, but dread Monday mornings. But remember,
Turn the clock back a few centuries and it was normal to believe the world was flat. It was also normal for the majority of your children not to live past the age of five. Normal is not necessarily good, and certainly doesn’t always equate to good enough.
What To Try
- Work out your Audience-of-None – the thing that just feels like play for you, that you do for you and no one else.
- Do Interest Mapping – think broadly about what ignites your curiosity and what resonates with you, and make these the pathways to better work and lifestyle.
- Design Your Minimum Viable Lifestyle – Develop a more balanced view of your life that fits in interests but is still sustainable financially.
You might also resonate with How To Avoid Six-Out-Of-Ten Life, You must build interests or die tryin’ – preface to Interest Mapping, Build Community Or Die Tryin’ and How to give yourself Better Problems to Solve.
