Another weekend is coming to a close, and we all know what that means… tomorrow is Monday. Now, in the states it’s a holiday, but around the rest of the world, it’s the start of another full week of work, the start of having to follow a certain schedule, and for some, it means that there are five more full days until they can live the life that they want to be living.
Ask yourself why, though. Why wait to live for the weekend? Why waste more than two-thirds of your time just to live the life that you want the other one-third? Why not find some level of balance, and instead of choosing to live for the weekend, why not start living for today?
Stop Choosing To Live For The Weekend
I haven’t always been a fan of the weekends… in fact, I used to hate them. Most people live for the weekends, but for me, I simply didn’t know what to do with myself. There was no structure to my life on the weekends, I didn’t have to follow a specific schedule or routine, and for somebody with a slight bit of OCD, this would drive me crazy.
Not only that, but I lived to work. Even taking a day of PTO was a struggle for me. During the first year of having a corporate job, I ended up wasting a full week of PTO simply because I didn’t know what to do with my time, and because I hated not being at work.
I was the type of person who loved Monday’s and absolutely hated Friday’s. Once Monday rolled around, that meant that for the next five days, I would finally have some structure in my life. I would wake up every morning, go to work, go workout, come home, and repeat that same process for the next five days. Once Friday came, that meant that for the next two days, I would have time on my hands, time to think, and time to relax. These are all things that I hated.
And for the record, yes… I know I am a bit weird.
Something changed, though, and it quickly became the complete opposite. As I started on this whole self-improvement journey, I started to enjoy the weekends more and more, and Friday’s were no longer as miserable as they used to be.
The weekends became a time where I would challenge myself – where I would go out and seek adventure, when I would create memories with friends, and when I would try to push myself out of my comfort zone. You know, what most people do one the weekends.
Finding Balance
As I have continued on to grow and to challenge myself, I have realized that either way, whether I was choosing to live for the weekend or choosing to live to work, I was simply wasting away precious time in my life.
Why was I forcing myself to choose when I could and couldn’t live my life? Why not just live my life and do what I wanted when I wanted to?
I think this is where so many of us go wrong. We wait to do the things that we want in life until there is a “better time.” We wait to take that risk on ourselves until we feel a little more safe and secure. Simply put, we wait to live the life that we want to live until sometime in the future, but fail to realize that the future is not certain.
The truth is, there will never be a better time than right now. Instead of trying to find a better time to live the life that we want to live, what we really need to do, is to find some sense of balance in the life that we already have. We need to not live for the week, not to live for the weekend, but to live for today. Live for today instead of living for any other time in the future because tomorrow is never guaranteed.
Live For Today
No matter what it costs you, live your life for today instead of waiting to live it in the future because you simply never know what the future holds. Maybe you’re around, maybe you’re not. But it doesn’t make sense to let the life that you have right now to pass you by without making the absolute most out of it.
Live today like it is your last day. Do the things that you want to do, create the memories that you want to create, and be the person that you want to be. From here on out, quit choosing to live for any day in the future, and instead, live for today. You simply never know if it just might be your last.
Michael Bonnell
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