It’s no secret that I often struggle to remember what day of the week it is. I don’t know what I’d do if we didn’t have the regular, if somewhat rigid, cycle of seven days to structure the week.

Yes, I said rigid. And yes, that was a hint of resentment you heard in my voice.

But I’m learning (the hard way, of course) that however senseless and arbitrary the seven-day pattern, living within the confines of this “prison” is more liberating than living somehow independent of it.

The supposed freedom I hanker after keeps turning out to be a different sort of prison. That is the prison of having all choices available to me all of the time.

Imagine if every priority had a voice and they were all shouting for attention all of the time. Any time you managed to choose one item to work on, the others immediately demanded that you again justify your exclusive efforts. As a result, you never really enjoy focused effort, but rather find yourself explaining and reexplaining to a pantheon of warring and unending urgencies.

It’s analogous to driving rules. That you can count on the other driver stopping at the red light frees you to maintain your driving speed through your green light. The limitations make more possible not less.

What frustrating limitations, unfair rules, arbitrary structures, or rigid patterns are making you crazy? How might you look at them differently and discover ways in which they might make more possible instead of less.

Today is Monday. The beginning of the work week. However arbitrary, a myriad of decision have already been made for me, freeing me to return to work, pick up where I left off last week, and know that my co-workers will be at my side.

Again, I find myself… loving Monday.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 9:23 am and is filed under Loving Monday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.