How Do You Saturday?
Why Saturday’s Are The Most Important Motivators in Your Life
Days away from being a new father is a great, strange place to be. Anticipation sits on the visible horizon brewing like a thunderstorm. It promises a whirlwind of emotions and turmoil yet there is peace before, a calm state of reflection.
I am going to be a dad. It does not matter how many times I say it to myself, it feels strange, overwhelming and crippling. This has me considering all kinds of things, like how to be a dad, how to be a partner, really, how to do it all. I have a plan to collect advice with my new Youtube channel The Newest Dad, where I ask my questions and get help from the community I am building online.
However, my reflection continues. All the advice I am getting from the channel has a general theme. Babies take over your life and all your free time. Now, this is not exactly news to me but it definitely won’t feel real until it happens. I mean how do you prepare for that?
But it does have me considering my time and my free time. Free time is a funny thing. It’s kind of like spare change, it is only spare if you don’t use it.
Now, this may seem like an obvious observation but it lays at the heart of the importance of Saturdays. If ‘free time’ had a name it would be Saturday. It is that perfect lazy, versatile day that nearly everyone has off and can be with or without obligation. Sandwiched between the anticipation of Friday and the permissible lethargy of Sunday, Saturday is inherently wonder-filled and is the most important motivator in your life.
Since we were kids, Saturdays were programmed as our special day. Especially for us Gen X to in-betweeners that didn’t have Nickelodeon or the Cartoon Network. Yes, we did have a window after school for cartoons but the mother load of animation was on Saturday morning.
I mean Transformers, Teenage Ninja Turtles, Smurfs, Ghostbusters AND The Care Bears on the same day,
boom.
Saturday-morning cartoon is a colloquial term for the original animated television programming that was typically scheduled on Saturday mornings in the United States (and Canada) on the major television networks. ~ Wikipedia
Saturday morning excitement was akin to a mini Christmas morning. It had an early morning buzz but unlike Xmas, our parents didn’t wake up at the crack with us. This is where we earned our first taste of independence. I remember pouring my first bowl of Fruit Loops, Saturday morning, 7:45 AM waiting for the action to start. It was freeing.
In my house, we were all about the X-Men cartoon. My younger sister (Nykia, -6 years) and my older brother (Nigel, +11months) and I, had a comic book adoration and that love spread to the cartoon. It was the only way to see these epic characters brought to life.
One of us would wake first and wake the others by whispering “X-Men” and you knew. We slid downstairs to the TV wrapped in blankets, still in pjs, docilely excited. If one of us was too tired to join, the other two would shake our heads in amazement until the other came to their senses, “Oh ya, X-Men.”
A day entrenched with that kind of meaning doesn’t lose it’s importance or luster simply because Saturday Morning tv changed its programming. Saturday remains a key day, it’s Saturday!! Just the sound of it rings with ease and wonder. It still carries significance and can be used as an indicator to understand what we are doing with our lives and where we are going.
Think back to any particular period of your life: college, high school, in love or single. These eras all share one thread, any lass could look to how she spent her Saturdays and it would indicate what she was into or going through.
When I was bartending my Saturdays varied, before college as a bartender came with many late nights, especially Fridays, and sleeping in hung over on Saturdays. I didn’t get much else done in those days. When I started to go to College my Saturdays cleaned up quickly. I didn’t have time to stay up all night and get drunk Friday. I needed Saturday to study and for assignments.
You can peek into anyone’s Saturday and tell so much about that person. Saturday reveals.
This is because Saturday is discretionary. It can flip the bird at a boss and say piss off to anyone. A text can be ignored, a phone can ring on silent. Saturday is yours.
As a life litmus test one need only look to Saturday to see one’s status. This is the quickest indicator where you can ask yourself, “am I where I want to be? Do I want to be spending Saturdays drinking at the beach?” The answer may be yes. And for you that may be ok; however, you may realize that there are things you have no time for, you have put off or that you long to do that would serve you better. By replacing drinks at Kitts beach with that DIY Skillshare photography course you bought with that new DSLR you haven’t used or finishing that project in the basement that is collecting dust or many other things that may get you closer to wherever it is you are trying to go.
Given this day has been engrained in us from young and acts as a snapshot of life’s status it is no surprise it has predictive powers on our ability to get stuff done or to achieve things. Friends who go to the gym on Saturday seemed to be in better shape than those of us that only go after work. In school, friends who went for Saturday runs were just an edge ahead or closer to their goal or where they were working to be.
Now you may be skeptical and say “people can be so determined that their passion spills into Saturday.” This ignores the power of the day and that harnessing Saturday’s power is fuel to the fire. A day already armed with visceral and emotional relevance has a mighty capability to encourage, motivate and steer your life.
“The way we spend our time defines who we are.” Jonathan Estrin
Jonathan Estrin had it nearly right.‘The way we spend our Saturdays defines who we are.” Me
People that chose to take their lazy day, their cartoon charged excitement day, their spare change day and add some intention to it tend to carry that focus into the other days of the week. It is easier to focus on a scheduled Monday or hump-day Wednesday than on an anything goes Saturday.
We are what we do, and given the importance of Saturdays, what we do on Saturdays is really a metaphor for our lives and where we are at and potentially going. Ask yourself,
How Do I Saturday?
If your Saturday is nothing or wasted or ignored or slept in, chances are so are opportunities, growth, and adventure in your life. If you seize Saturday by the throat attack it with vigor, intention, and purpose, that momentum will carry. I mean, you are doing this in your ‘free time’. Spare change spent on an investment turns into invested money. When you no longer have spare change your money has purpose and all of it becomes worth more.
A good Saturday should refuel your spirit and rejuvenate you.
Are you wasting the power of your Saturday?
Now I am not saying Saturday needs to be muscle pumping or cardio filled to be productive. You don’t need to be creative or crafty at all. It is all about the intention. The desire to improve, move forward. Since Saturday has all of this power, you need to simply recognize it and use it.
Use it for that thing you are interested to learn more about. Or that thing you need more of in your life. How about a get-right stress-free day of meditation and walking on the sea wall? Saturday’s efforts will carry and have the powers to transcend the efforts to make it real.
Trust in the power of Saturdays, embrace it.
How we choose to spend our time dictates if we have success, growth, and mental stability but more importantly, if we get there. If we can plant the seed of intent-filled, useful, refreshing Saturdays those efforts will vine throughout the other days in our lives. The jungle it creates may be just the oasis we are after.
Click Here to see why I hate when the weatherman is right.
Nicholas Simon is a writer and sales professional. He is a Canadian living in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and three kids. He writes short stories, articles, and other peculiars that dawn upon him.
