Two months ago, I made a decision to radically change, after I realized I was wasting my weekends. I realized that I was spending the first half of my weekends, glued to the couch, recovering from my week, and the second half of my weekends prepping for the week to come. I realized that very little of my weekend was actually spent filling up my cup. Our souls need nourishing, and binge-watching Netflix and running errands all weekend wasn’t cutting it.
While this decision to change how I spend my weekends had probably been building for a while, I had a moment in particular that served as my first big “wake up call” moment.
It was a Monday evening, and I was leaving the office. Like many Monday evenings, I called my little brother on the way home from work to catch up and chat. We caught up about recent events and funny stories, and given that it was a Monday, the conversation naturally turned to the happenings of the previous weekend.
“What did y’all do this weekend,” he asked, referring to what my husband and I did just days before. And you know what? I blanked. I had nothing. I couldn’t think of a single thing we did. I stammered for a bit, recalling the highlights. “We went grocery shopping, I worked out, we watched TV and just hung out.” Even as the words were leaving my mouth, I felt icky. I knew something wasn’t right.
Later that night, still feeling a bit icky, I checked back in with myself. Why did my mind draw a blank when my brother asked about our weekend? Why did I recall only a random sampling of errands and chores from the weekend prior? And then it hit me. It’s because we pretty much did nothing all weekend. Not “nothing” as in rested and relaxed and intentionally caught up on sleep kind of nothing. No, that kind of nothing is important every now and then. This was did “nothing,” as in spent the weekend mindlessly checked out and vegging, then hurriedly preparing for the upcoming week. I realized I was wasting my weekends.
A few days later, after some self-reflection and a conversation with Matt, I knew things had to change. I decided to start a little experiment, and my live on the weekend challenge was born. I’ve learned so much in the last six weeks, and it was all set into motion with a single sentence. What did you do this weekend?
If you’re like me, and you find yourself struggling to remember what you did on the weekend, maybe it’s time to make a change. And what better weekend to start than this weekend. You in?
Curious about what I’m learning in my experiment to live on the weekend? Click here for a rundown of reflections so far.
