Dreading Mondays. A lot of us say that the weekend had passed too quickly. We say that it is Monday again. It is back to reality. We dread the start of the week to work and always look forward to that weekend to rest. By Friday, we are excited to get home and we say to ourselves that before we know it, it is Monday again. The cycle starts again.
Let’s just take a pause and expound on this matter for a bit. Because we might be forgetting that working brings a lot of benefits for us compared to doing nothing and just doing leisure activities.
The Monday Dread
A lot of posts on social media speak of this Monday dread. It expresses an emotion that we don’t want to go back to work just yet. We do not want to be back in the office (or login at work from from those working from home) as we feel we did not get enough rest.
Our weekend had passed in the blink of an eye. On Friday, we look forward to the weekend. We are excited to be not working and just lounging, binging, or doing any other activities that are non-work related. Some just want to sleep the whole day and do nothing. This is in the hope that we are resetting and have the energy to work again on Monday.
And when the day comes, we secretly hate it. Although a lot of us feel the same way and make a joke about it, we still come to work because we need to. If we do not work, we lose the income that we need to support ourselves and the people around us. So even if we do not want to, the need comes first and we push through. The joke became accepted and while the underlying meaning that we feel tired is there, we just move forward and forget.
The impact of hating Mondays
Thinking about hating the dreadful Mondays has a negative impact on how we deal with work. We are not aware of this but when you take a pause and look back, whenever we think that we fear, or hate Mondays, we are not as productive and effective as we want to. Work is delayed and more breaks happen. Unnecessary chitchat with co-workers occurs too. Endless scrolling on social media takes place instead of workflow. By the end of the week, we have not accomplished anything.
When we tell ourselves we hate, or fear something, our brains start a self-preservation mode. Of course, if it is a threat to us, then we take necessary actions so that it would not endanger us. By dreading Mondays, we create a dangerous environment in our heads. In effect, we take each external stimulus as dangerous and either do a fight, flight, or freeze response. We tend to get irritated easily (fight), procrastinate (flight), or ignore (freeze) as a response to events at work. Thus, we end up not finishing anything or at least a mediocre job.
Working is a part of life. For us the working class, it is a means to finance and support the lifestyle we want and support our loved ones. We endure hardships at work because if we don’t and we stop, we all end up with nothing. Continuing to dread Mondays makes us feel tired and unpurposeful. We start seeing that what we are doing is not important and we start to hate it. It becomes a sacrifice we must make because of the income and always look forward to that retirement and rest. However, doing nothing or less is not very good for us either.
Working is beneficial for a longer life
The excerpt above is from a dystopian book entitled Brave New World written by Aldous Huxley published in the 1930s. A very interesting book that depicts a dystopian future where, aside from the science of creating humans, social classes are accepted and must exist for the benefit of all. Without one, chaos arises. Each and everyone has a role to play to ensure civilization thrives. Which by now, although social classes still exist, there is a a hidden cry about how the rich are taking advantage of the middle class and the poor. The rich get richer. The poor gets poorer.
There is also a call to reduce the working hours. From a 40-hour work week to a 4-day work week. This has been tested in Europe and worked fine. Fewer hours make people more productive and happier. I personally like this but, what could this bring to us? Does working fewer hours really a solution to keep people happy?
When we dread Mondays, we program our heads not to work. But that is not right. If we are not working, we get bored. And boredom sucks the joy out of life. That’s why we need to do something, create not just leisurely enjoying our lives, to live a happy life.
Create instead of reacting
Dreading Mondays might be caused by the feeling that we are not creating anything. The probable reason that makes us dread Mondays is that we do not really create something with our work. Come to think of it. Pause for a bit. What activities at work comprise most of your time? Meetings? Answering emails and chats? Talking to people? What does that produce? What have you created? What have you really accomplished by being in constant communication with everyone, or anyone?
Maybe this is the cause of being stressed at work. We get anxious without seeing any result with most of what we do. By answering emails, chatting with people, attending an hour-long meeting, and talking to people, we just attended and reacted to external stimuli without creating anything real, or at least visible at the time. Maybe it is time to look at how we attack our work.
Having a focus time at work is not a new idea. Blocking time for yourself to complete tasks without any disturbance can help you be productive. The question is what do you do in that focus time? Answer emails? Maybe it is important to use that time to create something instead of just attending to someone else’s need.
Summary
Dreading Mondays can have a negative impact when we tackle work. We psychologically tell ourselves something we do not want to do leading to stress, mistakes, mediocre work, and unfulfilled life. We need to stop dreading Mondays and program ourselves to like it. We also need to look at what we do at work and ensure we are creating something instead of just going to meetings and talking to people without any real-world output.
By focusing and allotting time at work to create instead of going through the day attending to everyone’s concerns, we can better feel fulfilled with what we do. It is not just about why we work. It is also about what we produce at work.
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