Living for the Weekend

I have noticed a popular theme in Kiwi culture- that of 'living' for the weekend. People can't wait to leave work for two days of pure bliss - freedom! I can understand that. I love the weekend too, especially the Saturday sleep in's, and time with Matt and family and friends.

However over the years I have been perturbed at the ongoing persistence of this idea of living for the weekend. The weekend is only two days out of seven. If you are living five of those days longing for the latter two, then are you really living life? Or are you always longing to be somewhere, something different? If you can't be satisfied during the week, during your job or your studies, then what is the point? Seriously. You will be working for most of your adult life. If you can't enjoy the week, if you are always yearning for the weekend, then you will be living most of your life in misery.

I see the working week as my time to do what I am skilled in and passionate about. I aim to keep improving and giving my best to what I do. I aim to build relationships and take enjoyment from the small things in my day -small chats, funny comments, lunch in the sun, a snatched morning coffee, a job well done, a job not so well done but learned from and so on.

I aim to be positive about and enjoy my days. I think Mondays are just as valuable as Saturdays, if not more. Mondays are days I can have an impact, where I can be effective and do what I am made to do, wheras Saturdays are more about me - not as important.

This might be easy for me to say as I have a job I really enjoy. But this philosophy is one I apply to my whole life. For example, when I was single, I tried to really enjoy and soak in my days, to live and love the moments with my flatmates, with my friends, and the things that I knew would end when I got married. And now, I can appreciate those days of my life as days lived to the full, and days where I was happy to be in the moment and not (too) focused on what was to come.

In this moment, now, we are where we are and it is our choice to enjoy it or wish for time to fly past to something else. It's our life, and we will only get this time once. Why not view things well, make change if needed and be thankful and blessed for where we are. There is no use wasting our energy yearning for things to come.... they will come. But now is now, and its the only now we have.

Stop and Smell the roses