It Was Always up to You

It’s Friday today. Whatever the hell that means.

You know, it’s been over a decade since I last had to stick to a “typical” daily routine. The kind where you’re expected to be “on” between about 9 and 5, Monday to Friday, and then “off”, free as a bird, Saturday and Sunday. Instead, I’ve had stretches where none of that applied whatsoever, and then stretches where bits of it did and bits of it didn’t.

But old habits die hard. Over a decade after I left, and with all kinds of turns and twists and bashes and blows to my routine, my inner workings still essentially operate on school time. Nothing seems to change my expectations of each day. Monday still feels like something to get through. Friday still represents the end of something old and musty and the beginning of something fresh and new, sort of like the releasing of some kind of internal pressure valve. And on a Saturday evening, I still can’t help but feel as though… somehow… the universe has more in store for me than at other moments of the week.

The pandemic has, admittedly, blurred all this a little. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with people that amount to them saying “I don’t know what day it is any more, they’re all the same…” I nod along, and yet in the back of my mind I’m thinking “I know what day it is: I feel creative and ever so slightly manic… it must be a Wednesday…” … for example.

Now, I don’t know if your schedule has been turned upside down over the past few months, or if you’re one of the people whose routine hasn’t changed as much. Either way, I have the same good news to tell you: IT’S ALL A STORY. And the story you tell yourself can either help you or harm you.

If the way you feel about the days of the week empowers you and makes you feel more engaged and alive in the world, then keep preaching it to yourself. But if it doesn’t – and mine certainly doesn’t – you have to know that it’s up to you simply to craft a different story. In fact, it was always up to you.

Pandemic or not, you don’t get to choose exactly what you’ll do each day, and whether you’ll like it or not. But you do get to choose how you’ll greet the day – your attitude. So Monday has a “feeling.” So Friday has a “feeling.” Sure, but at a certain point, all that shit is in your head. You might not have put it there deliberately, but it’s up to you to clean it out. There is no cosmic, laws-of-the-universe difference between any of the days of the week, and there never has been.

It was always up to you. Always up to you how you greeted each day. Always up to you if you ear-marked Friday and Saturday night as the only times you were allowed to enjoy your life. Always up to you if you were bummed out on Sunday night. Always up to you if Monday morning represented heaven or hell.

The content of the days? Not always up to you. Your atituude toward each day? Always up to you.

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