Pink Plankton

calendar-2You work a simple 9-5 job you don't necessarily love, nor hate, but it pays the bills. There are things you'd much rather be doing than work.  You commute an hour to get home, and once you do, you're tired from a day spent starring at a screen and attending meetings. You've cooked, eaten, and cleaned, and now you only have a couple hours left before you have to go to bed in order to wake up early the next morning and do it all again. You decide to watch an episode on Netflix rather than start that blog you've wanted to start/song you've been meaning to compose/book you've been meaning to write/program you've been meaning to code…

Friday rolls around and you're thinking, "Yes! TGIF."  A whole two days you don't have to be at work.  A whole two days to do whatever you may please.  Maybe you've thought, "Yea I'll get started on that thing this weekend," even though that's what you said last weekend. And once again, your hangover, sleeping in, and all those errands you didn't get around to during the week, prevent it from happening anyways.

Pretty soon, weeks turn into months, you've gone through three seasons of that show, but that blog/book/program/whatever is still nothing more than an idea in your head.

People wait all week for friday, all year for summer, all life for happinessToo many people live just for the weekend - two days out of the week, 29% of your time here on earth.  If even as little as one week has gone by without you doing something you are passionate about, you should hate when Friday comes along.  You should hate the fact that another week has gone by, and you haven't worked towards any of your real goals. That time is gone and you'll never get it back. An entire week of your life has passed and nothing inspiring, noteworthy, or thought provoking has come out of it.  Nothing has made you feel alive.  If you are in your 20's, an entire week of your precious, youthful 20's. If you are in your 40's, an entire week of your enduring 40's! It doesn't matter how old you are; none of us are getting any younger.

Some say that minimal free time is what makes our capitalist society work.  "Keeping free time scarce means people pay a lot more for convenience, gratification, and any other relief they can buy...The perfect customer is dissatisfied but hopeful, uninterested in serious personal development, highly habituated to the television, working full-time, earning a fair amount, indulging during their free time, and somehow just getting by." (D. Cain, raptitude.com).  Regardless if you believe this or not, there is no denying that some, of not, most of those living in North America fit the description perfectly.

Don't just accept the system. Don't accept that this is how it has to be. If you are fortunate enough to have free time, use at least some of it to get yourself to a point where you don't care if it's Friday or not. Any day of the week is a part of your life and you should be grateful to be doing whatever you are to do on that day.  We shouldn't be working to live in the future.  All we really have, for certain, is now.