#MondayMusings: New beginnings

Yesterday, I posted a piece on seven everyday resolutions I wanted to make for myself in order to become the person I imagine myself to be. And since today is Monday, I decided that this was a fairly suitable day to start acting upon said resolutions, to get ready for new beginnings.

Many people hate Mondays. With a vengeance, even. Yet, I keep hearing of those people who celebrate Mondays for the new beginnings they represent. Each Monday, you are presented with an entirely new week to use as you see fit. As such, each Monday you get to start fresh. Heck, every morning you get to start fresh, with the possibility of improving if only just a little bit from the day before.

Early start

So, today I jumped out of bed the second I heard the radio switched on. A faint mumble from a sleepy Chris beside me informed me that Scorpions were playing. I can’t remember which song, to be honest. What occupied me was to effectively attend to our morning tasks, such as cleaning the bunnies’ litter boxes, and getting breakfast ready.

I splashed some water in my face, helped Chris emptying the litter boxes, and started to crack some eggs. Rolled up some smoked ham, cut some cantaloupe melon, scrambled the eggs, and put everything on two plates. 

Chris and I ate breakfast, watched our usual 20 minutes of braindead television, paused for coffee, and by 6.35 am Chris was on his merry way to work.

Books and guitars

I remembered my list of resolutions from yesterday, and put the timer on my phone to ten minutes. From the bookshelf I picked up Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari and read a couple of pages on money and their importance on shaping human trade.

After my read, I took the guitar down from it’s wall mount and played a few rounds of Nightwish’ While Your Lips Are Still Red. It turns out I’m still not completely comfortable with the Bm chord, but I am getting there. It rings good when I strum it, but it doesn’t flow as good when shifting between chords.

This reminds me that I need to keep bugging my friend to get around to buying a new guitar soon. We’re planning a Christmas concert, and well, Christmas is quickly approaching, like it or not. So it is essential to start practicing, I reckon.

I rounded up my guitar playing with a powernap on the couch (the autumn is getting to me, apparently), and hurried into the shower afterwards. All clean and dressed, I sat down and completed some design files for a client. When the design files were delivered, I enjoyed the peace and quiet that followed a productive morning with several things on my list already completed.

Lost momentum

The feeling of calm that grabbed a hold of me was a feeling I wanted to conserve throughout the day. At the same time, I knew that in order to get some more work done in terms of research and such, I needed to get back on the computer. And in an instant, the reality of a multitude of tabbed browser windows quickly hit me and I lost my newfound mojo just like that. Even if I warned myself beforehand that exactly this would happen if I logged on to my computer and didn’t pay attention.

Two hours flew by, and suddenly the clock read twenty minutes past noon. And the good feelings of having been super productive in the wee morning hours felt distant. The dishwasher was not emptied, and dinner was not yet planned, zero minutes of drawing had been done.

But then I remembered, there’s always tomorrow. And there’s still half a day left to get the feeling of productivity back. And as I started to write my wins and woes down in words, a new blog post (this one, if that wasn’t clear) was suddenly written. That helped.

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.

Mary Pickford

Now I will empty the dishwasher, plan dinner, put on some makeup and run an errand. That will also help.

Here’s to productive days and new beginnings! Tomorrow morning we get a new one.
How has your Monday been unfolding?