The Ideal Weekend
Having two months off from working and waiting to return to school has been quite a blessing. It’s given me a lot of time to work on various creative projects (this blog included). I’ve been able to exercise with more frequency and start lifting weights in earnest. I can now bench press like 100 pounds (yah, I’m huge). I’ve also had a lot of time to adjust to a totally new schedule – one where each day is pretty much like the next – and I’ve fallen into a routine of leisure.
All that leisure time has lead me to think about what makes the ideal weekend. I’ve experienced a few variations, none of which has produced the ideal. There’s the leisure weekend: not much different from a usual day, except in terms of traffic on the roads and in stores. There’s the student weekend: a time to catch up on school work and sleep in, but otherwise, not that much different. There’s the employed weekend: something you hold dearly and hate to lose a minute of. None are perfect.
My ideal weekend has four parts.
1. The ideal weekend is not precious.
While you can still enjoy the perfect weekend, and certainly might feel annoyed to have it eaten up by a long, irksome task, there is no feeling of desperation towards the time. That means that your weekday activities can’t be soul-sucking. And it means you have time during the week to take care of daily tasks (like cleaning, exercising, et cetera) so that they do not have to be crammed into the weekend. Finally, since it’s not precious, if you have to do some work (be it school or job related), it’s not that big a deal.
2. The ideal weekend is extendable.
If you feel like adding an extra afternoon or morning onto your weekend, it should be possible. Your work or school schedule should be flexible enough that your weekend doesn’t begin at 6 PM on Friday, every Friday. Sometimes it starts at 4, or even 1. And it doesn’t end at bedtime on Sunday. You can take a little extra time on Monday to extend your weekend a little bit longer (that also means you can stay up later on Sunday).
3. The ideal weekend still has meaning.
A weekend has got to feel like a weekend, and that means during the week, something must be different. You need to have classes or a job to take up your time. Thus, when the weekend rolls around, it’s not just like any other day. You can sleep in or stay up late. You can spend a morning leisurely or spend a late night out. You can enjoy the weekend, knowing that it is fundamentally different than your weekdays.
4. The ideal weekend must have resources to support it.
This is the one factor that makes life as a student averse to the ideal weekend. You’ve got to have some money to really enjoy the weekend. That means if you want to go out and grab dinner and a movie, you shouldn’t be thinking about how that will affect your bottom line. You should be able to hop in the car and get away for the weekend. Without those resources, a weekend can still be enjoyed, quite fully, but it won’t be completely ideal.
I guess what I really need is a job that I enjoy, that doesn’t monopolize my time, and that pays a decent wage. I’m not sure where to find employment like that, but someday, with any luck, I will be able to experience the ideal weekend. Until then… I’ll take my weekends as they come and try not to complain too much.
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