Sunday night it starts creeping in slowly - the dread, the horror, and the sheer despair; could you ever imagine that one word can incite so much emotion in you? One word. Monday.
The weekend went by in a heartbeat. No literally, you don't even know where it went by. Wasn't it Friday evening, just yesterday? Weren't you doing Jagermeister shots and climbing bar tops just an hour back? Did you manage to get enough sleep THIS weekend? No, the answer to that will be a vehement no for a while. And what about all the chores you had to wrap up? And look at this room, what a mess, what a warzone... And a warzone it is, just that you are battling through the week to survive the many bombs that life throws at you - to do lists, chores, errands, gym, plans with friends, office assignments, social life, family time, me-time, and managing a relationship to top it all off (that is if you managed to sustain one long enough).
Welcome to our lives.
We are the millennials - young professionals defining life on our own terms, living the way we want to, making our own choices, slaves to nobody except our whimsical minds and hearts. We want things in life, we have dreams and aspirations, and we work towards those - we work our a**es off, really. Sometimes we work well into the night, well into the evening, even through the weekend. But that's what our parents told us life is as a working professional isn't it? Work hard, reap rewards. And our immediate rewards are the weekends - the two days we try to fit EVERYTHING else of our lives into. We literally live for these two days of respite. Life happens to us when the Friday bells ring in. We call it #FriYAY.
But even the weekend becomes work-like if you don't snap out of the vicious cycle of wanting to do everything that the social media is hinting you should be doing, else you aren't really living the good life are you? And it must be true if the social media is pitching it that way isn't it?
It is funny how we earn to live, and live to earn, but the living sort of disappears somewhere in the middle. You work to travel, but to travel you don't get leaves. You slog so you can eat at all those new fancy restaurants, but you can't get out of work soon enough to go to those places.
The thing is that we all feel too tired to even change the cycle, break the cycle. Isn't of building a gratifying, fulfilling life of contentment, we are constantly running, chasing. Instead of rewarding ourselves, we keep falling deeper into the ditch, farther into the non-existent race.
We forget that life is happening to us right now, not timed in from Friday to Sunday.
We need to take a breather, and then make some lifestyle changes if we want to break the pattern. Wake up a little earlier, fit in some exercise before work, have scheduled days for gym and social scenes (even during the week, post work), dedicate more time to something you like doing for yourself, take up yoga or join a class. And most importantly, leave work on time.
I have noticed this is a running trend with many people our age; we tend to put a lot of unnecessary pressure on ourselves - in the act of overcompensating or overreaching. Things are different; bosses aren't as vicious as they were once painted out to be. And everyone, EVERYONE wants a healthy and mentally sound person working for them. Rather that, than a lab-rat/machine who counts hours, minutes seconds to when they will be yet again be able to post a picture on Instagram on Friday night, and gear themselves to enjoy the freedom that comes with a shelf life for two days.
Comments