Chapter 8: how to avoid lousy Mondays

Jun 30 • Uncategorized • 8423 Views • 2 Comments on Chapter 8: how to avoid lousy Mondays

 

If you want to know what this blog is about…

Monday again, damn…

 

Monday. Weekend gone, five working days ahead before we are free again. Damn… I do not hate Mondays. I cannot allow myself the luxury of hating one seventh of my life. Time is too precious. However, I used to hate them. There are quite a few small and big things we can do to fix this, to hate Mondays less, not to hate them at all, or even to love them. Here’s a way that worked for me. Might work for you, or help you find your own way.

 

Small fixes

 

There are mainly three things you can do to take on Mondays with a whole different spirit. They are pretty obvious, but since  “obvious” is that thing it’s clear we should do but we don’t, I am gonna list them. They say bullets and lists are good for blogs, so here is mine. I should get a few thousands of  readers more. XD

 

• Enjoy  your weekend: That means, do something with your weekend other than staying at home watching TV, or even reading a good book. You can either do something you really enjoy, something you never do or go somewhere you’ve never been. The trick is to make the most of it by either doing what you really enjoy or breaking the routine. The reason why you normally feel lousy on Mondays is because you did not really enjoy your weekend and your spirits sink before you start. A good weekend is like a short holiday. Holidays are so restoring because we do things we normally don’t and go to places we normally do not go to. Holidays interrupt our routine and fill it with new interesting things. There is no reason why we cannot do that on a smaller scale and budget on the weekends. You do not need to do this every  weekend, you can spend a weekend planing the next and it will keep you motivated through the oncoming weekdays. Or you can spend the weekend editing your pics from the previous weekend… whatever you choose, do something that feeds your soul. You will know if you have succeeded because the weekend will pass in the blink of an eye, but Friday will seem far away in the past. And most important. You will not have that feeling that it is Monday again.

 

• Dress  your Monday: You are coming from a restoring weekend so you should be well rested, both physically and spiritually. Prepare yourself for a long day because after work you should have arranged something you love to do. I run on Mondays. And I am looking forward to it. However the day goes, I know it is going to end with me looking at those mountains I love so much from a grassy summit while the sun sinks into the horizon, or with me running in the rainy mist among horses while they graze in the moist grassland. I am lucky enough to be able to adapt my running hours to the time of day I want, so in winter I run at 4 pm and now at 8. But that is my plan. You have to find yours, be it the gym, the movies, painting classes, Karate, writing workshops, whatever suits you. Make it be something you love and make it happen at least on Monday.

 

• Make sure you are well rested: I do not like going to bed early on Sundays, but if you face your first working day after a good night’s sleep, it makes a big difference. Getting up sleepy and tired is the perfect recipe for a lousy Monday.

 

Big fixes

 

There is another reason for suffering lousy Mondays that are followed by lousy Tuesdays, Wednesdays… you hate your job, or you do not hate it so much but it takes all your time, and when you reach the weekend all you feel like doing is rest and recover. Well, this is no easy situation and has no easy solution, but just because the solution is not easy it doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Hating your job is a serious problem and should not be taken lightly or accepted. I am going to throw some more bullets in. Another thousand readers or so, I am told.

 

• If you hate your job, you should look for another one. I am not talking about just saying you should change your job, I am talking about actually looking for a better one. Of course, be sensible and do not make hasty decisions. Take your time and keep on working on that job you hate, particularly if others depend on your financial stability, but look actively for a better one. This will improve your life in two ways: first you will eventually end up in a better job. Second, knowing your situation is now temporal and that you are doing something to improve it will help you face your current hateful job with a whole new spirit. But you gotta make the decision and really start moving, or you will be the only one to blame for those lousy Mondays. Just complaining will never do. We all have burdens and responsibilities, but leading a happy life is also one of them.  We only live once and we have an obligation to seek a better life. Besides, unhappiness is catching. If you are miserable, you will make those around you miserable too. You cannot allow that, you need to be brave and fight conformity.

 

• If you do not hate your job but it takes too much of your time you are facing another difficult decision. If you like your job but your life resents, try to change the circumstances. If you live far and spend too long driving, try to move. If it demands too many hours and leaves you time for nothing else, try to get to terms to find a balance, talk to your boss or, if you are the boss, decide what you want and how you want to do it. One’s job can take 38 hours a day if we allow it and still demand more. We need to be sensible. If you cannot do any of these things, consider changing your job, because you are going to end up hating something, or somebody —your  wife, your kids— will end up hating you. If you think you can raise a family just by financing it you are screwing up big time. Your family requires your active presence. Not just a kiss goodnight, or to see you reading the paper. They need you there. You cannot sell that in exchange for a great job or a higher income. Well, at least that is my humble opinion. When I think about this I always remember Cats in the Cradle, a song by Ugly Kid Joe. And this cannot be fixed afterwards, so do not take this decision for granted as if there was nothing to decide, or no choice. It is an important decision you have to make consciously, and there is always a choice.

 

•  If you hate your job, or you do not hate it but it takes all of your time, but you know it is on a path that will take you somewhere you want to be in the mid-term, man up, or woman up, and apply the small fixes. Just make sure you work a realistic calendar and that this difficult period of your life has a beginning, a defined end, and there is a good reason to go through it. Just do not go on enduring indefinitely.

 

• Changing jobs will probably take time and might perfectly not be the end of the line. We tend to think everything is forever, that if we lose our job we will not find another, or that if we find another job and do not like it we will be stuck. That is not true. If the next job you get is not for you, keep on looking. And keep on looking as long as it takes. If you are determined to improve your situation, your life at the job you hate will be better too, even if the change takes time to arrive, because you will be trying to do something. It is not trying that sinks us.

We need to remember we just got one life. This does not mean we have to act crazy or like nothing matters, but we have to be aware that life is a journey, not a destination. If you are waiting to live a happy life someday in the future, then you will never do. You need to find a way to live happier everyday right from today, because yesterday and tomorrow are only intellectual concepts. You need to plan for the future, but not by indefinitely sacrificing the present. Life is a lot of todays one after another. You are never going to live tomorrow until it becomes today. And you will not have another chance to live this life. So, if you hate Mondays, you know what to try. Should we live some 80 years hating Mondays,  we will hate about 4,000 days, which adds up to more than 11 full years of hateful days.  Time we do something about it, right? Well, it is in nobody’s hands but yours. Move.

Do something.

 

 

About the Pictures

 

The picture of the moon was shot through a little motorized telescope. This shots are tricky because you need to aim and focus the telescope properly, then attach the camera just so and then hope the tube of atmosphere through which the light that is getting into the telescope comes is not going through too much turbulence (part of what astronomers call seeing). You shoot a few times and then pick one that is not blurry. Sometimes the seeing is good and you get a few nice pics, sometimes the seeing is bad and you are crushed. Good seeing is enough to enjoy the telescope. To shoot pictures you need it excellent. Once I got the shot, I enhanced contrast and detail and added some tint. The text is inspired by my fascination for the night skies, which we seldom care for and which in cities we have sacrificed altogether.

The picture of the sunset is a HDR composed of 7 shots . Tricky because it is shot into the sun and you want the shadow areas to have detail and the sun not to be just white. This is easier where the sun sets on a distant horizon, but here, in the mountains, the sun sets while still being pretty high in the atmosphere, so we do not get to see those orange balls of sea sunsets.

This pictures can be printed in photo paper, canvas, metal or acrylic surface from 8″ to 48″ and 40″, or in greeting card format. You can check them by clicking the images above. I am all in for customizing pictures. All of them can be retouched in many ways, texts altered, changed or deleted. Ask freely.

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