Live in the Now: Looking forward to the weekend can be a good source of motivation, but it shouldn’t be your only method of happiness

Slumped over in my desk, I zone out. My math teacher drones on about quadratics — my brain feels fried. I glance at the clock: 40 minutes left in class, barely halfway done with the block. But at least this is the last class of the day and there are only three more days until the weekend arrives.

I often find myself “living for the weekend.” I base my life around how close I am to the two days of heaven that allow me to relax and unwind.

Every day is spent paying attention to the passage of time. I look forward to lunch because it means I am half way there. I look forward to the end of classes because it means I’m getting closer to the end of the school day. I look forward to 2:40 p.m. because it means I’m a full day closer to the weekend. 

I make my plans in advance: who I’m going to see, what I’m wearing and what I’m looking forward to. Because the present isn’t worth paying attention to, right?

I’ve come to the realization that this isn’t a healthy mindset. I spend five days of my life wasting time away as I daydream about my weekend plans. My ratios are off. 2 days:5 days — happy:sad. Only enjoying myself for the 29% of my week that’s made up by the weekend isn’t a good way to live my life. The weekend shouldn’t be the only time where I’m enjoying myself. 

I force myself through the week, telling myself that it’ll get better. I’ve always associated the passage of time with increased happiness: the future will always bring me what I’m wanting. 

But I’ve learned that happiness won’t just appear randomly with a big red bow on top as time goes on. You have to create your own happiness and find joy in the seemingly unimportant moments. When you live in the moment, you learn to turn those five days of “negativity” as opportunities to learn, grow and have just as much fun as on the weekends — even if you have more limitations.

According to Psychology Today, overthinking the future leads to a state of “destination addiction:” the idea that happiness is always somewhere else. Until you give up the idea that happiness is in your future or in another place, it will never be where you are. Looking forward and working towards things in your future can be a good source of motivation, but it shouldn’t be your only method of happiness. 

It’s a constant cycle of thinking about the future instead of living in the moment. When I finally reach the weekend, I’m stressed about the idea of sitting in my classroom staring at the clock for the upcoming week. Once I make it to the classroom, I’m thinking about the weekend. It doesn’t end.

It seems like any time I have something exciting coming up to think about, I zone out and miss moments in the present. For example, homecoming. I spent so much time planning and getting myself ready that the dance was less fun when it actually arrived. I constantly miss out out on being spontaneous, and most of the time, things are more exciting when you can live in the moment. Even when I was at the dance that I was extremely excited about, I was already thinking ahead to my plans for next weekend. 

Living every day to simply “get it over with” has become my new normal. This isn’t how I want to live my life. I want to live every day as much as I can, not only when things are going well for me. 

It’s easy to float through life, living for the two days at the end of the week and throwing aside everything else. But some day I’m going to look back, wondering what happened to all of the time I was given. I’m going to live every day in the moment. Enjoying myself shouldn’t be reserved to the weekend.