Beat Monday? No, Beat The Weekend
Have you seen the show called Beat Monday on Outside TV? I haven’t, but Outside recently published the trailer for the second season. As I watched it I couldn’t help but be a bit smug.
The narration to the video starts out with:
The 9-5 grind only gives us the weekend to live. How much can you do in just 64 hours?
I like how they assume that weekdays for most people who work aren’t really living. The data however are behind them. A 2019 Gallup Poll showed 85% of people are unhappy in their jobs. And the precious little free time left after an 8 hour or longer workday is usually filled with chores, a commute, or getting ready to go to that less than desirable job.
Oh let’s not forget the 4+ hours per day spent half-comatose in front of the TV, trying to numb the pain.
So one could argue they’re correct, that most working folks aren’t really living during the week. Of course Outside is targeting this show to their demographic, which presumably is folks who engage in outdoor adventure activities like your humble blogger. I would 100% agree that 40 hours or more in an office stuck under lifeless fluorescent lights isn’t living.
After introducing themselves as Mike and Jason in the trailer, they say:
With full time jobs and families our weekdays are slammed, but our weekends are for crushing adventure.
Scenes of Mike and Jason “crushing” adventure flash quickly, from paddling to rock climbing to mountain biking. Any regular reader of my blog knows this is basically my life…
Except for the fact that I don’t have to try to cram it all in the 64 hours of a weekend. I found financial independence.
The Irony
Mike and Jason from the show look like they’re having a great time. And they genuinely look like pretty good athletes. Heck if I were being paid to do that stuff by Outside TV I would take the job for sure, no benefits necessary.
But the premise of the show makes me sad. It reinforces the assumption that life will suck most of the time during your working years. It claims that you only get chance to live it with any joy 28% of the time, or two out of seven days. Until you retire of course, but by then you’ll be too old and creaky to do all these cool and adventurous things.
Another thing I don’t like is the absurdity of it. Are we to believe these guys are cool with just leaving the wife to hold the house and kids down for the weekend while they have fun and barely make it back a few hours before work on Monday morning?
I’m sure that wouldn’t put any stress on a marriage. I mean, you might as well stop off at the local law office to get a divorce lawyer on the way home from the mountain bike trails on Sunday night if you play this game.
Absurdities aside, their message is that you should try your hardest to live life in the 64 hours of the weekend because that’s what you’re stuck with jack, like it or not. And what do they do to get this message across? They make a TV show so you can watch others “crush it” while you sink further in the ass-shaped hole in your couch, dreaming of adventure. The irony.
As I watched the trailer I couldn’t help but scream “there’s another way!!”.
I should call Outside TV and explain financial independence. Maybe I could pitch them an idea of a show following me as I ride, run, climb, paddle, and adventure all week long. And I don’t have to beat Monday, actually I prefer to beat the weekend…
Beat The Weekend
I posted an info graphic recently about my favorite days of the week. During my full time working years my favorite days were the weekend of course, like most folks. Fridays were the best weekday, only because it was the prelude to the blessed weekend.
Now that I’ve been semi-retired for over 3.5 years, the weekends kind of suck and the weekdays are my favorite. Everything’s crowded on the weekends with those “live for the next 64 hours” folks. Not only are my favorite outdoor destinations crowded like the climbing walls and cycling trails, but everything else is too.
Grocery stores are a shit show on weekends. Home Depot? Hell effing no, you couldn’t pay me to go there on a weekend. I can go on Tuesday at 10:00 am and have the place to myself. It’s like a whole ‘nother world where there are no lines, no crowds, minimal traffic, and no hassles.
Everything they say in that video is the same for me in my semi-retirement, except I’m trying to beat the weekend. And I have way more than 64 hours, more like 130. Sure I still do work 20 hours a week at my W2 job, but there’s no comparison. Best thing of all, I have nature’s playground mostly to myself.
So be smart with your money now financial warriors so you can reach a level of wealth where you don’t have to beat Monday. And if you’re disciplined and stay the course you’ll reach that milestone way before society expects you too. That’s what I did.
When you get to the promised land, you’ve got Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc to do whatever. And hit me up when you get there, maybe I’ll consider having you on my show Beat The Weekend.
I get a small taste of it when I am off my 1 day during the week. It really is so much different than being off during the weekend with far less crowds etc.
I will say as I get older even the hours you have for the weekend get less as I need more time to decompress and recover from the work week.
I no longer stay up late at night on Fridays because now I am tired. And I often sleep in on Saturday to make up for lack of sleep during the week so that cuts my weekend time even further.
“so much different” is an understatement.. it’s like another world. Some of that was lost in 2020 due to COVID when most folks were home, but things have mostly returned to normal and my weekdays are blissfully back to being void of crowds and clutter. And your comment hits on the way that full time work piles things on to make life stressful and unsustainable, its all connected
Great twist on the show. I especially liked your quote with this article from your email, “If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain” – Stephen Wright.
You spent years working those weekdays building your nest egg to reach FI and now you get to “taste the rainbow”. I believe everyone is on a different path and timetable but if we stick to the principles you and others have outlined in the FI community, we will all get to the gold at the end of the rainbow too.
I am currently working hard with an umbrella over my head trying to block out either the fluorescent lights or the rain, looking forward to my Tuesday at 10am Home Depot trips. Thanks for showing us the path and being an inspiration.
A fluorescent light-blocking umbrella – now THATS a business idea! Genius. Thanks for the great comment Dan!
while mike and jason are “crushing it” all weekend their spouses are eventually gonna make have sweet coitus with someone else. maybe they’ll go to new orleans on a girl’s weekend and find a suave bartender like i was! if those kids were at a party at my house and i heard the phrase “crush it” i would toss them out.
all that being said activities during the week are great. i’m glad i “crafted” a life where i have time to do things after work and still drink a bunch of wine if i choose.
haha, hilarious. I can see a spin-off reality show about their wives ditching them for guys who actually care. There’s endless potential here
I’m with you on doing errands weekdays. How lovely it is to see no lines when returning something at Home Depot in the middle of the week! Same with Costco Gas. I now use the weekends to stay off the Outdoors trails due to the crowds. I rather work on the yard, food prep, clean house on weekends. Every now and then, I’m lured to friends who only have weekends off to wander outside. How charmed life is when you have so much flexibility!
I also do food prep on weekends, its the perfect time. And flexibility is a super-power!
You touch on the one thing that both of us enjoy most. The fact at how enjoyable the trails are on weekdays, wether it is cycling or backpacking the experience is just a whole lot more serene and a whole lot quieter.
Yep, and I know you get out there and “crush it” all the time. Keep at it dude, show the way!
I call dibs on being your first guest. Let’s do this:
Monday: Mountain Biking
Tuesday: White Water Rafting
Wednesday: Hike on the Appalachian trail
Thursday: Fly Fishing
Friday: Micro-brew to celebrate
Sat/Sun: Chill
Sounds like a typical week in my retirement, actually….so, am I in?
Oh man, this is great- consider yourself the first guest. And even though I love fishing and go whenever possible, I don’t own a fly rod and have never been fly fishing. So on that episode you can teach me!
As always an interesting take! I’ve been a big fan of the show, it’s worth a watch for sure if you haven’t checked it out yet. The two guys may make it seem like they’re out to Beat Monday in their shows, but both being mountain guides I think their lives are pretty towards being outside all the time (although I see your points for sure!). As a parent with two young kids, same as both the guys, I found the show to have a different meaning. They both maximize their time together in the mountains in small time frames, which is all you get as a parent of young kids regardless of how much you work 😁
But seriously, check out the first season for sure. It’s good for mountain stoke 🤟🏼
Didn’t know they were guides in real life. I have a lot of guide friends and realize those folks usually do well at balancing working in the outdoors versus getting their outdoor therapy. And don’t get me wrong, if the show were on Amazon Prime video I’d probably watch it, but that’s the only paid streaming content service I have. I do get inspired by content like that but YouTube is chock-full of it, and it’s all free 🙂
Fair enough! And all the stuff is on YouTube for free, at least up in Canada so I’m assuming you too? Here’s the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtE2xH1xZs0&t=416s
Outside TV is free for us in Canada too if we look it up on a laptop/desktop, just from mobile devices it charges for some reason. Hopefully the same for you too to enjoy all the content! Cheers 🙂
Duuude – thanks for that! I wrote that post about a month ago and at the time I searched for it on YouTube and didn’t get anything but short trailers. I looked at Outside TVs channel here in the states and it’s mostly short 3-5 minute vids but some of those Beat Monday episodes are now there. Maybe they put up season 1 recently because season 2 starts tomorrow. This is great – thanks again!
I agree 100%, obviously….but there is one problemo. At least where I live people are out and about all day long, 24/7. I often wonder if anyone works at all? Does anyone else experience this in their area? I am all for everyone enjoying their time off work, it is just ALWAYS busier than I expect, even during the week!
I can’t imagine being semi-retired and to never have to long for the weekend but be happy every single day of the week. As I climb the net worth ladder, that’s all that I can think about to be honest.
Which is really bad because it’s making me not live my current life as it is currently. Have to change the habit some day.
Stay the course David, it can seem like there’s no end but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Good luck, it gets better!
Love it. Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond “if we have time!” absolutely avoid on the weekends, or maybe all the time. My favorite place is the bike trails or the pool during on weekdays, really empty before 4pm.
Yes now that covid has calmed down the trails are almost back to normal. They were crazy all last year and even over winter!
Totally aligned with you here. Beat the weekend indeed. Time arbitrage is a massive boon in being retired. I like that you point out the irony of a TV ostensibly about spending ton of time outdoors is actually a ploy to lure folks into being sedentary, inside and pumped full of consumer advertising.
Since my bias is well known, I have to say that if people simply walked away from their totally volitional, self-imposed full-time job of watching TV, they may be surprised how they could perhaps begin to “beat life.” In my opinion, “Crushing” life begins with literally crushing tour TV. But that’s just me, of course.
I like the term ‘time arbitrage’, I’m going to have to use that. Thanks for the comment dude!
I had the same reaction with respect to the ability to have adventures all weekend long. If I didn’t have errands to run and chores to do, maybe two days of fun out of seven wouldn’t be a bad deal. Amazon has changed errand-running forever, but still–most people working a full-time job can’t actually spend two days a week having fun. Unless they have a personal assistant (in which case they probably don’t need to be working at all) or have a spouse who they never see. I can appreciate what they’re getting at for sure, but the assumption that it has to be that way is totally wrong. A reality show about early retirement would be awesome… except that the target audience probably has better things to do than sit around and watch it :).
Amazon has indeed changed errand running, but I suspect most of us have filled the newfound time with other busywork or errands. That’s how things seem to go. And a reality show about early retirement sounds like an idea I wish I had time to start 🙂
I remember back when I took a week vacation from my full time job, it seemed like such a treat to be able to run errands and shop in stores during the week when there was less people. Now I usually try to avoid most places during the weekends with the longer wait times, traffic etc.
I agree, Sat and Sunday kind of suck
Well put, Dave. I rarely mountain bike here on the front range anymore during the weekend. I always ride during the weekdays when the trails are empty, thanks to FI and living off the trailhead! The idea that attaining happiness is only possible on the weekends while leaving behind your family is a fallacy that doesn’t have to be propagated further; instead, you can be in the predicament of being excited for the week to start through strategic spending and saving.
Your state is getting really crowded, at least the front range area. I may end up out there, but would likely choose the Collegiate Peaks Area or San Juans instead of the Front Range. Problem is I have lots of friends in Denver and it’d be nice to be close to them. Thanks for the comment and ride on!
I like the weekdays much better too. Most people are stuck at work and life is way easier for me. The weekend is also very busy for me. Kid’s sports game, writing for the blog, and other errands. They took up all my time on the weekend.
Now that more people are being forced back into offices after covid weekends are starting to suck again. They had gotten better for a while there…