At best Mondays are akin to the first day of the week, a fresh start to the week. A clean slate. Or for me or someone like Garfield, that rotund yellow tabby, it’s just a good reason to sleep in late. The world always seems to be filled with a mindless drone of whip-cracking, that noiseless rendering of workers and commuters mundane and un-perky (I understand this is not a real word, but you catch my drift), numb state of mind.
Newspapers are opened quietly then scanned. You’re riding that train on the regular humdrum track toward the office or place of business. “It’s Monday folks … it’s finally here!” As if the invisible chain wrapped round your ankles hadn’t alerted you to this fact around 5PM Sunday night. Just when you had almost begun to relax from the week before! Yes, the pull commences until there is an actual, mental tug-of-war between you and your day off. Hateful chains of events are ready to whirl you willy-nilly into the abysmal dread of the work-week ahead. “But I’m not ready!” you exclaim. I know … but you can’t stop it. It is going to pull you in no matter how you resist or pretend you cannot hear the almost imperceptible clinking of the links. “Ding-dong your chain is calling.”
I’ve been there and I surely admit to playing games in order to ward-off the inevitable. Try as I would to prepare ahead, the coffee maker setup for the press of my finger against the start button, the cleaned pet bowls stacked next to the canned food and clean spoon; I would get my clothing laid out, or my chef’s uniform pressed, shoes organized, and even go so far as to line up (in the order of use) my makeup, hair products and fresh clean towels. Then I would return to whatever I was doing Sunday night. Every time that a Monday thought popped into my head, every time the building where I worked came into view, I was ready with my bat, and I knocked Monday out of the park, pretending I only had to live in the “Sunday Moment”, and that tomorrow was somewhere in the far distance. I did trick myself a few times but not many.
Preparation did help but it didn’t relieve the tension in my shoulders and neck nor the tightening of my already clinched stomach muscles. There are lots of people out there who sadly are under the thumb or at the mercy of their boss, supervisor or work warden. Why is that? Why do people want to lord it over someone and use what tiny little power they cloak themselves inside, to ruin someone else’s day? Doesn’t seem fair, now does it? Why can’t bosses or managers build their employes up with smiles, proverbial pats on the backs, feel-good messages? I don’t think I’ll get to the bottom of it today, or tomorrow for that matter. What matters is that some of you who read my articles know the shoe fits. Whether it is the shoe of the employee or the shoe of the person in charge it shouldn’t matter because I bring the message to all of you, even if you love your job, there’s a Monday out there for you, too.
The best armor there is for Mondays is to face the inevitable, bake something the night before so the aroma fills your home. “No, you do not get to taste it yet.” Go to bed an hour earlier than normal and rise an hour earlier, too. Drink that coffee, solve that crossword puzzle while you eat your pastry. Put on some music to help you feel liberated, dance around for five minutes and leave the house thirty minutes sooner. Face your day and make it your own. Tell everyone hello. Smile at strangers and take some of your newly found excitement into that building. Kick off the chains and wrap them into a ball so they will not disturb you throughout the work week. Manage your time well and enjoy being alive. Put a quirky little step into your attitude and see if you don’t break the chains that bind your mind. Free yourself and pass the goodness along. This way, you are in charge and you set really good examples to those who want to change and be a better boss or manager. Could be they won’t pull on their cloak of superiority and will choose to lighten up. Perhaps they need your levity of mind in order to see things in a positive way. Change your thinking and watch how contagious it is. “Have fun!”
Allow the fruits and syrup to become acquainted.
</
