Poor Tuesday

A conversation with one of my new coworkers brought to light the under-appreciation/presentation of Tuesday. Every other day has some kind of emotional or symbolic significance. Sunday is a day of rest, laziness, and relaxation, unless you own a home. Mondays are the notorious herald of the coming week of hell. Wednesday is hump day! Thursday is a night when well scheduled college students go out, and on top of that carries the pleasant feelings of an impending weekend. Friday is obvious; the bastion of all things good and awesome. Saturday means freedom and excitement and possibly the opportunity to make fun of people at your local mall or Walmart.

But poor little Tuesday, he isn’t anything! Even his historical significance is limited; Tuesday is named after the Norse god of war, Tyr, who only had one hand. Not only does nothing special happen on Tuesday, but it also serves as a constant reminder that we could lose our limbs at any time. The Roman and Greek variations of Tuesday are Mars and Ares, who are also gods of war, suggesting the Tuesday embodies violence, strife and death. Good times.

“But wait!” some say, “there are some good things that happen on Tuesday! What about Mardi Gras or ‘Fat Tuesday!?'” While this is a clever argument, Mardi Gras in fact represents the end of a celebration, which is followed by a day of painful fasting. A festive celebration in preparation for a day of harsh spiritual penance; not my idea of a redeeming quality for the day.

In a similar vein, I have heard the argument that elections take place on Tuesday! Is this really a legitimate argument? Based on my completely experiential and mostly made up statistics, only 15% of people actually care about voting, 45% pretend to care about voting, 30% only vote if their voting center is on the way to work and the last 10% don’t even know what they’re voting for. Elections are barely cool, even within the groups of people who think politics are super cool. Even when combined with Mardi Gras, this definitely does not give any real substance to Tuesday.

I sit here, on a Tuesday, lamenting over the lack of real meaning for the day. How can I be empowered to work hard and strive for excellence when the day itself can’t do the same? It’s had a lot longer than me to figure it out. It’s time to pick up the slack Tuesday; pretty soon you’ll just be considered Monday 2.o, which is a terrible, terrible fate.

I will continue to plan exciting life events on Tuesdays in an attempt to counteract it’s otherwise void of purpose, who’s with me?