I've decided to stop hating Mondays.

From the movie "Office Space"

Ah, Monday. The day everyone loves to hate. Historically - and please note here that I am no historian but I do have internet access - Monday has been recognized as the second day of the week in most cultures (although the modern ISO standard recognizes it as the first. Go figure.). It celebrated the "moon's day" throughout many pagan religions, but later Christian and Orthodox religions recognized Monday not as a celebration of the moon goddess Mani from Norse tradition but simply as the day that followed Sunday, when the Lord's resurrection was commemorated.

Today we view Monday as the start of a long work or school week. It gets a bad rap, to be sure. We imagine that Mondays seem to stretch into endless hours of managing problems, putting out fires and trying to resolve one crisis after another. We may still feel the afterglow of a restful or rejuvenating weekend and are trying to come to grips with the fact that the next one seems like such a long way off. Yet Monday has the same number of hours, minutes, seconds as any other day. If there are more chaotic moments on Monday than on any other day I would wager that this is a result of a bad attitude or the stress of someone else's bad attitude being imposed upon someone else. So the cycle continues. 

I wouldn't consider myself "old" (some may disagree) but one thing I have learned is that Mondays inevitably pass, and in many cases pass much more quickly than one would like. I am slowly beginning to understand that whatever day it is - Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday - the days are quickly passing by. Before I know it, Monday has turned to Friday, which gives way to the weekend, then lo and behold - the process repeats itself. I hope that the fact that I can recognize this cold hard truth will allow me to find some appreciation and joy in each day. To curse a particular day is not only a waste of my precious time but may even blind me to the beauty that that day may possess.

Just doing some quick math here, should I be fortunate enough to see 82 years in my lifetime, I will have enjoyed around 4,160 Mondays. Being halfway to that age now, that leaves me 2,080 Mondays left. That's 49,920 hours, or 2,995,200 minutes of my life that I can spend appreciating the fact that I have that day to enjoy or mope about it. 

Perhaps it's taken me this long to get with the program but I am going to approach the day and the week with a sense of gratitude rather than remorse. I'll look forward to a solid week of training and preparation for my next race. I'll look forward to a good week at work, and try to help those who may not be quite so jovial about the new work week. The bottom line is that regardless of whether I want to embrace the day or add my voice to the many who choose to complain about it, I only have so many of them left. And I would rather spend them solidly in the former camp.

So hang in there, Monday! I've got your back. For whatever THAT'S worth.....

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. Simply the best.