Make Your Mondays Marvelous!

Who likes Mondays? Nobody. Poor Monday, always getting blamed for grumpy moods and work boredom. Poor Monday is the ultimate scapegoat for everything {blah} in our lives.

I am not saying I look forward to Mondays. Like everyone, I sometimes get the where-did-the-weekend-disappear-to? Sunday-evening blues. But the other day I realized something: if I spend every week dreading Monday and slugging through Monday just trying to get through the day, that means I'll be spending 1/7th of my life in a state of yucky, grumpy, get-me-out-of-here dread. And that's just not how I want to spend my time.

So I was thinking back to when I was in elementary school, and we had adjectives associated with all the days of the week, cute alliterative names like: Super Sunday, Stupendous Saturday, Fantastic Friday, Thrilling Thursday, Wonderful Wednesday, Terrific Tuesday, Marvelous Monday.

How does that sound? Marvelous Monday.

I kinda like it.

The thing is, back in elementary school, Mondays *were* marvelous. I don't remember dreading Mondays then. Weekends were great, of course, but school was fun, too. I think a large part of it was that even school had a sense of excitement and discovery about it. Every day, even Mondays, were filled with the possibility of surprises. Magic was around every corner. Back then, even the most everyday incidents would be cause for celebration: ice cream for someone's birthday, a trip to a new restaurant, a note from your best friend passed secretively during class, a new game on the playground, a gopher discovered behind the kickball backstop...

I think it's about time to bring some of that everyday magic back. Especially to poor Monday.

From now on, instead of moaning about Monday, I am going to try to make each Monday particularly marvelous. Maybe I'll try something new, do a random act of kindness or gratitude, act spontaneously, bring out my inner 12-year-old. Then, I'll go home and write about it, bringing that renewed energy and zest for life to all of my writing projects.

Will you join me? What is marvelous about your Monday?

Dallas Woodburn is the author of two award-winning collections of short stories and editor of Dancing With The Pen: a collection of today's best youth writing. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three years in a row and her nonfiction has appeared in a variety of national publications including Family Circle, Writer's Digest, The Writer, and The Los Angeles Times. She is the founder of Write On! For Literacy and Write On! Books Youth Publishing Company and is currently pursuing her Master's degree in Fiction Writing at Purdue University, where she teaches undergraduate writing courses and serves as Assistant Fiction Editor of Sycamore Review.

7 comments:

Shirley Corder said...

Thanks Dallas. Interesting thought. When I was at school I did NOT like Mondays! Why? Because I invariably hadn't done all my weekend homework and knew I was in trouble. Now I love Mondays as I belong to a choir that has practice early on Monday morning and we have such fun. It starts the week off on a happy laughter-filled note. So yes, I'm happy to have Marvelous Mondays.

Martha said...

Having a positive outlook is a great way to spend your time. My two girls and I always try to find the marvelous in each and every thing.

Karen Cioffi said...

Dallas, wonderful thoughts for Mondays. And, being positive about everyday is so important, they do really go quicker and quicker, and as you say, why spend one-seventh of your life dreading a day.

I'm with you: Marvelous Monday!

Mary Jo Guglielmo said...

Thanks Dallas. I'm in for Marvelous Monday...through Sunday!

Dallas Woodburn said...

Thanks for your support everyone! :) I love your idea Shirley to start off Monday morning with something fun, like choir practice, that you enjoy. That's a great way to start the week off right!

Heidiwriter said...

Marvelous! Thanks for your uplifting post--it made my Monday!

Magdalena Ball said...

I agree wholeheartedly with you Dallas. In order to make Monday more marvellous, I've started a Poetry Monday - what better way to begin the week than with poetry. This week we've got Billy Collins.

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