Journaled on Tuesday, 28 March 2025 | Santo Cristo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 23 degrees, warm, sunny and slightly overcast.
It is Tuesday, and all is well. I have always liked the beginning of the day.
Early morning is when I feel most awake, most useful, and most ready to get things done. In many ways, I feel the same about the beginning of the week.
After the weekend, whether the weather has been good, bad, exceptional, or nothing special at all, I usually feel ready to begin again. The truth is that almost any weekend is enough to reset me for the following week.
I sometimes struggle with insomnia on Sunday night into Monday morning, but even with very little sleep, the start of a new week still feels good to me.
I do not know if I start at full steam on Monday, ease off a little on Tuesday, and then lose another gear by Wednesday, but I can usually keep going until Wednesday night or Thursday morning.
After that, things begin to slide. Thursday is hard, and Friday is harder, though there is always a little relief as the workload softens and my mind drifts toward the weekend.
If Friday is my weakest day for productivity, I make up for it on Saturdays and Sundays.
In theory, they are days of rest, but I have always been able to work on weekends without much remorse. When I had the school in Copacabana, I spent the first couple of years teaching on Saturday mornings from 8:00 until midday. After a while, though, I gave it up.
First, I was already teaching so many classes during the week that I needed a proper break at the weekend. Without that space, I would have gone slightly mad. Second, many people did not really value classes at the weekend. Some seemed to feel entitled to them, but not especially grateful for them.
These days, with journaling, blogging, and video editing, I am more than happy to use the weekend to compensate for a slow Friday, or even for a slow week. If something needs to be done, I would rather sit down and do it than carry it around in my head.
There is a theory that nobody becomes a millionaire by working only a nine-to-five salaried job.
There is another theory that asks a simple question: how can you succeed in your dreams or goals if you are not willing to work on them, even on weekends?
When other people stop chasing their goals at 5 p.m. on Friday and only return to them at 9 a.m. on Monday, the person who keeps going over the weekend is already a little further ahead. Not always by much, but often by enough.
I have never been afraid of work. Cibele once said that work is a pleasure for me, and maybe she is right. I think I have a strong work ethic, but perhaps part of that comes from necessity. I have always had to work, like probably 99% of the world’s population.
What I have noticed, though, is that the thought I had at the beginning of this post is true.
I am usually better at the beginning: the beginning of the day, the week, the month, and maybe even the year. That is when I feel more energetic, more motivated, and more productive. I am not saying the rest of the time is bad. I am saying that I know myself a little better now.
Maybe this pattern appears in other parts of my life too: work, relationships, friendships, and personal routines. I begin well, then I start to lose steam. I may be being too hard on myself, but I also know myself well enough to notice the pattern. I am not perfect. I do my best most of the time, as we all should.
Maybe the trick is not to be productive every hour of every day, but to understand the rhythm of your own energy.
If I know I am stronger at the beginning of things, then perhaps I should stop fighting that and start using it. Work hard when the mind is clear. Rest when the body asks for it. Begin again when the next morning, the next Monday, or the next small chance appears.
Today was a good, productive day.
That is enough.
Be kind and be happy. And if you cannot be happy, still be kind, but not naïve.
In bed by 10 p.m.
Thank you for reading.
Thank you for reading this post. Please explore my other writing and share your thoughts in the comments section.
Richard
