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THANK GOD IT'S MONDAY (cont'd)

In so-called primitive hunter-gatherer societies, the workday was reduced to a minimum. Daily activity wasn't spoken of as work; it was simply life. Agricultural society notched up the pressure because farmers were at the mercy of the weather, the seasons and the harvest. But even these demanding cycles gave them natural periods of rest and relaxation. Later, industrialization forced our ancestors to literally work themselves to death in factories and mines. In the battle for legislated rest time, the workweek was shortened to six days, then five; it may yet fall to four. We're all counting the days, the hours, the minutes.

Certain religions, and even the economy, are also to blame. Hard work and sacrifice were considered virtues; sloth was the mother of all sins. Life was not about pleasure; we'd have to wait until the end of our days to reap our reward in heaven. In other words, death was like one very, very long weekend.

Until quite recently, work meant doing something physical and rest meant doing nothing at all. Today, work usually requires little physical exertion. But somehow we still wear ourselves out attending endless meetings, searching for obscure facts and fumbling with high-tech gadgets. The weekend is an opportunity to give our brains a break and recover our bodies' physical functions. And so we climb up and down mountains just to get some exercise – which would likely amuse our ancestors, who would have considered that labour.

Here's another problem: the weekend is supposed to be our only chance for salvation, for recovery from our work-driven culture; but we don't use it as directed. How many times have you let work eat away at your weekend or cut a trip short to get ready for Monday morning? At one time, we would have looked to a priest or a doctor to seek relief from our time crunch. Today, the prescription is a course in time management.

Planning weekends has become an ordeal in itself. As we struggle not to waste a minute of our hard-earned freedom, parcelling out pleasures for week's end, these very efforts become sources of stress. Pop psychology titles like The Seven Habits of Highly Lazy People aren't exactly becoming our new bibles. If we have to call ourselves weekend warriors, clearly the battle has not been won. The weekend is our last stand. Defending it symbolizes our victory against everything that threatens our personal freedom.

The weekend is a relatively recent invention that we still haven't managed to perfect. A longer weekend isn't the answer because for some people the weekend can never be long enough. Which brings us back to that Mi'kmaq philosopher: How do we achieve a balanced life? The answer seems to be as simple as working less and having more time for ourselves.

It's now Sunday night, and I'm putting the finishing touches on this essay. In the next room, my partner is completing a rush job. Tomorrow is Monday, when presumably we can return to our regular work with a clear conscience – and without the overwhelming pressure to "have a great weekend." [ ]

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