7 Nights of Sanity

Today is Monday. For many people, Monday is an evil thing to be dreaded and hated with passion. Yup, people hate Monday's. It's not hard to understand why either. Your weekend just ended, you undoubtedly accomplished a lot less than you planned to and you have 5 fresh days of work to suffer through before you get another one. What's to like? Ever the nonconformist, I actually do not hate Monday's. On the contrary, I actually kind of like them. The reason is as stupid as it is trivial, but it does the trick nonetheless. I don't hate Monday's because of prime time television.

You see, it's occurred to me recently that even though I claim to like spontaneity and change, I too am a creature of habit. I have fallen into a set schedule as of late, and I'll be damned if it hasn't made my life better. It's a weekly schedule that does indeed change somewhat from week to week, but for the most part I've gotten used to doing certain things on certain nights. Though pretty much every day I have to go to work and that usually sucks, my nights bring me joy. Because my nights bring me joy, they lessen the tyranny of normality I suffer through during the day. Upon realizing this I thought I might share the lesson so that others might benefit. I'm an altruistic bastard, I know. And you're welcome.

Let me give you a rundown of a week in my life. Since I already told you about Monday, let's start there. I don't watch a lot of television, but I've become fairly committed to a few shows. Two of those shows are on Monday nights and they serve as my light at the end of the tunnel for that day. Because when I'm at work, tired because I barely slept all weekend, I think about the zany shenanigans the main character in Chuck will find himself in, and what new piece of the puzzle Heroes is going to reveal to me. Tuesday's are almost always spent hanging out with a friend who lives a short distance away and reads this blog more faithfully than probably anyone else. You know who you are. Wednesday's have become movie night. I watch a movie either with my family or with the aforementioned friend. Thursday's once again rely on television, when the only other shows I watch regularly are on. Those two shows are The Office and Scrubs. Both absolutely hilarious in their own ways, Thursdays leave me sore from laughter. Friday nights are officially weekend time and thus spent doing weekend things. Hanging out with friends, drinking, and otherwise just having fun. Saturday's are generally spent recovering and wasting time until Saturday night, which more often than not is a variation of Friday night. Sunday's are different because they are scheduled all day. I wake up, go to Dunkin Donuts with two of my buddies and then shop for whatever food we'll need to eat that day while we watch football. Sunday night is spent either watching football with the usual gang, or watching a movie with the usual gang, then driving home to pass out from exhaustion even though I barely moved all day. That moves us right back to Monday.

My point is that having something to wake up for each day is important to be happy and get you through the shitty stuff that you're obligated to do. Most of us don't have many options with how we spend our time 9-5 on Monday through Friday, but we can control what we do when we get out of work. So give yourself a goal or a reward or whatever you want to call it, but do it every single day. Spend your free time wisely and take advantage of the time between work at night and work in the morning. It doesn't matter if it's a small thing or a stupid thing, as long as it gives you something to look forward to. Maybe you thought my schedule sounded like torture rather than pleasure, that's fine. You do what you want to do, that's the point. My regularly scheduled playtime isn't always glamorous, but it works for me.