Monday

Monday morning apparently has more than it’s fair share of cardiac arrests. Studies have shown that more people die at 9.00am on a Monday morning than at any other time. Shocking, isn’t it?

Surprised? We really shouldn’t be. We spend most of our waking adult hours at work. Doing something in exchange for bits of paper which we can then use to exchange for ‘stuff’ that we want or need. Or stuff that we think we want or need. Not the same at all.

Why do we accept this? Most people, for a fact, choose to spend this significant portion of their lives doing something which they invest no thrill in, or that brings them no fulfilment, or that bores them, or, plainly, that they hate.

From within the rat-race, within the ‘job’, the things we worry about on a day-to-day basis seem important. Vital even. The 9-5 seeps into our real lives, into our sleep, robs us of vitality and hope. Take a couple of days off, however, and that emergency meeting and that urgent report take on a lesser significance. Step away further and they become funny, meaningless concerns.

Finally, step away for good, and one can find oneself feeling compassion for those who still attach importance to these things. Days take on new shapes. Important becomes a whole new concept. Urgent fades away. Obligation is only unto yourself. And life seems incalculably richer. Because it is.

And Monday mornings are just another opportunity to ask, ‘What shall I be today?’

I will never again accept the sick-in-the-stomach feeling of a Monday morning, obliged by someone else to do something I have no desire to be doing in order to have bartering power in a market place that disgusts me.