Not Every Day is Sunday

Someone I live with, someone who has ended up being sort of like a teacher for me, gave me some very simple but helpful advice a little while back. He told me that ‘not every day is Sunday’. I laughed in his face when he said this, because to be perfectly honest, I thought it was stupid. Apart from accepting the obvious, that yes indeed, not every day is Sunday; I felt like he was patronizing me by informing me of something more appropriately geared for a toddler. He’s younger than me, so I had to fight the pompous urge to put him in his place by reminding him of that. After all, I’m older with more life experience and pride tells me that I’m way above taking advice from barely 20 year olds.

Because I sometimes like to refer to myself as a mature adult, I thought I’d give him about 20 seconds to infer more meaningful wisdom. After all, today is Tuesday, right? Yesterday was Monday, wasn’t it? That makes tomorrow Wednesday or something like that and therefore I am able to conclude (thanks to my many bright years in Canadian Public Schools) that Sunday only comes around once in a while.

Since I live with my friend, I know that sometimes he does his washing on Sundays. On some Sundays he helps me do some landscaping around the house (also known as pulling out grass from dirt). We usually have nshima for dinner and we are all in bed sometime around 9:00PM. When he was telling me that ‘not every day is Sunday’, I was trying to imagine what he found so horrible about Sundays at our place. There’s never ice cream for dessert on Sundays or a mid-day drive through the park. There is walking around barefoot and the thrill of clean hands for about 30 minutes while I wash my clothes next to the stream. I guess it’s not really the sort of thing that many people would be envious of. However, there he was, sitting across from me, looking into my eyes, imparting this intelligent piece of information to me...and then I got it.

Not every day is Sunday.

It’s not every day that I wake up and feel like my involvement in this project is right. I sometimes feel like I have made a mistake or two. It’s not every day that the relationships between the people who are involved in this organization are on perfect terms. We disagree from time to time. It’s not every day that we receive a donation for $5,000. Sometimes our account narrows in on zero. It’s not every day that the world is going to validate that what we’ve attempted to do over here in Zambia is right. There are some who have the courage to tell us that we’re wrong. These days are always worse than they need to be, because at the close of them, I realize I’ve been given the opportunity to reconsider some of the decisions we have made. These bad days, end up being helpful in the end.

The most honest thing about Sundays is that when they’re good, they always promise to be good. When Sundays are bad, they always promise to be bad. They pass though , these Sundays. It has something to do with science and the way the sun works its way around us. Some brilliant group of people a long time ago, realized that it was best to have Sundays finish. It’s only 24 hours and then it’s a moment of the past. At times, it`s a truth that I am stubborn enough not to believe. Sometimes I let the disasters of some Sundays drag on into Monday. I have a difficult time accepting that, what is done is done. I want to fix it and I need it to better immediately.

I’m wondering if, after all, I’m not too old for `stupid` advice. It may be the thing that is going to help me and this organization to grow. If we dwell on the past, if we try to fix too many of the mistakes, than we will get lost. There are so many Sundays that have finished before us, and they don’t matter because we can’t do anything about them. It`s the Sundays in front of us that we can do something about. In fact, I have 6 days to think about my next Sunday. I have 6 days to focus on a better Sunday. That, I know I can do. Thank goodness that not every day is Sunday.