I love a good Monday, but I’m also scared to say that out loud. It’s almost illegal to mention that you actually don’t mind or *gasp* actually like the beginning of the week. Much better to groan with the collective workforce and complain about getting back into your regular routine.
If you can hang with me, I’ll tell you why I love Mondays, why it’s so in vogue to hate them, and how it might just be okay if you love them too. Check it out.
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A Typical Monday
Picture it. You walk into the quiet after dropping kids off. The sun is streaming through the windows. You’re already clean and partially caffeinated, so you bypass the shower and pour another cup of liquid motivation. Then if you’re me, you sit down and pour out the blog post that’s been rolling around in your head onto paper (or the computer).
Once you’re done, you move on to other things. Scheduling appointments, responding to email, organizing the week. Maybe if you’re an adventurous mom like me, you email the school and design some birthday party invitations, then you spend time working on your electrical engineering class and watching ProPresenter 7 tutorial videos for an upcoming gig. Either way, your Monday is a time to prepare for what’s ahead in the next few days and armor up.
Mondays Have a Bad Rap
Nobody likes Monday. It seems like at the beginning of the week, my socials are full of funny memes about how terrible it is to be starting back to another week at the grindstone. It makes me wonder: am I bad at weekends and relaxing? Does everyone in the whole world hate their job?
In Ancient Rome, society took one day off every 8 days to sell their wares. In a feudal society, the animals still needed to be fed and the harvest brought in before the rain and hail set in. You worked when there was work to do, regardless of how you felt about it. You had to pay the lord of the fiefdom.
Weekends weren’t really a thing until the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s. Prior to this, servants in affluent households would get one half day a week. Many took this day to travel farther to visit family in other villages. Some people would get Sunday mornings off for church, or possibly the whole day.
Remember Scrooge? “Poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every December the 25th,” meaning, he thought it was ridiculous that Cratchit still expected to be paid, even though he was taking the day off for the Christmas holiday. At first he wanted to give him only a half an hour extra on Christmas morning.
Once factories were established, despite factory masters’ objections that it hurt productivity, factory workers fought to take Mondays off to recover from the celebrating on Sabbath evenings. Laborers formed unions to help them fight for fair treatment and went on strike to make their point. Eventually Saturdays replaced Mondays, although still to this day some countries only have one day a week off (Djibouti, Iran, Nepal, Somalia, to name a few).
Henry Ford and the assembly line in the 1920s played a big part in establishing a 40-hour work week and a regular weekend on Saturday and Sunday. He was ahead of his time; the government didn’t mandate a 40-hour work week until the late 1930s, although Ford’s motive was still money. His workers made up the core part of his customer base, so he gave them time off to enjoy driving them and keep them buying more.
Workaholism
Here’s the thing. If you don’t hate Mondays and you love your job, people look at you funny. They say you must be a workaholic, like you’re addicted to something and it’s bad. But what if you’ve just found a way to align your passion and hobby with a paycheck? If you do some digging, you’ll find a ton of women who love their jobs and aren’t apologetic about it.
Mamamia Magazine in Australia published an article about women who love what they do, and it included their annual salary and a rundown of a typical day. This is helpful for gaining perspective, if you’re comparing to your own day and career. I’d say Glamour Magazine wasn’t too far off in their article about how to love your job and make changes so it’s more fulfilling.
What Do You Do?
In the end, I want to know: what is your job? Does it fulfill you? Leave me a comment and let me know. I certainly love mine, and even though in slow season it’s 25 hours a week and in busy season it’s 60+, I wouldn’t trade it. I get my Monday mornings to ramp up and feel confident about everything that’s coming. Maybe I don’t get up at 5am anymore, but being a writer and a DJ and working in production is the best life I could possibly be living.
If you haven’t quite made your peace with Mondays, that’s okay. Go out there and chase your adventurous life and someday maybe you’ll be a heretic with me and love a good Monday.
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