Body / Wellness
Featured Articles
Mindfulness
Steve Stein
Uncategorized

From TGIF to TGIN – Hump Day to Friday: a mindful tour of the work week

So it’s Sunday night, Game of Thrones just ended or maybe Sunday Night Football or maybe a movie on Netflix. Your favorite Sunday night show just ended and you find yourself brushing your teeth and you notice a little bit of anxiety in your belly and you are not really sure why the Sunday Night Blues are creeping in.

Then it dawns on you that the following morning is Monday morning, back to the rat race, back to the grind doing the “Sisyphus” thing. And so another week begins, which brings to mind an infamous statistic. Turns out, the highest incidence of heart attacks happen, When? – Monday morning, at 9 o’clock. No real surprise there.

Welcome to your working week! Okay, you make it through Monday and now it’s up the hill and on to Tuesday.  You get your kids off to school, maybe you make it to the gym after work if you’re lucky …. Tuesday you are still grinding, you are going uphill after a long day, you are ready for ……

This brings to mind one of my favorite recent commercials. it’s a Geico Super Bowl ditty.  If you haven’t seen it yet, take a moment and watch it here. 

The commercial begins with a camel walking through a modern-day office, nonchalantly saying “Guess what day it is? Guess what day it is? Finally a response, “Happier than a camel on Wednesday, hump day.” I nearly peed in my pants when the slow-moving joke hit me. Relevant to this writing, I am talking about, Hump Day.

It’s the middle of the week, you’re over the hump, now you’re on the way down the hill, breezing through the rest of the week until that magical, mystical end of the workweek. 

TG I F – Thank God It’s Friday!

So let’s review the days of the workweek through a mindful lens. First, let’s take a breath, (really, take a breath) and be here for the rest of this article.

On Sunday, many of us experience the Sunday Night Blues. You persevere and get through to Wednesday, to get past “hump day.” Can’t wait to thank god that you’ve finally made it to Friday. Thank god it’s Friday. So we’ve essentially missed the entire week, but we are good for Friday. Finally, a time and day that we are happy to be in the here and now.

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

                                     – Alan Saunders and later John Lennon

Turns out there is only this moment that we ever get to experience. There’s always something to be grateful for, no matter what day of the week.

As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than there is wrong.

– Jon Kabat-Zinn

#TGIN

There’s a parable that illustrates how precious each moment and each “now” is.

“If you were told you have a year to live, what would you do differently today?”

The story continues –

“If you were told you had only a month to live what would you do differently today than you’re planning to do today?”

As the story continues, the stakes are higher –

“If today was your last day alive, what would you do differently today than what you’re already planning to do today?”

The final, somewhat rhetorical question, of this parable, of this exercise, is –

“Why”

Why, would you do anything different today. The point is we take each moment, each day, each now, for granted. So take a moment take a look at your day whether it’s Sunday night, whether you’re reading this on a Monday, or on hump day. Take a moment to give thanks for this moment, take a breath. The point is to savor the moment, the day, the now.

So that’s my mindful look at the workweek, I’d like to introduce #TGIN, “Thank God It’s Now” to the omniverse. A simple reminder to ourselves to take a breath and be here now. 

TGIF and TGIN, have a great week, have a great now. 

– Steve Stein

Two other posts you might enjoy.
The Digital Sabbath
Devicivness

The post From TGIF to TGIN – Hump Day to Friday: a mindful tour of the work week appeared first on .