Monday, Monday -- Five Tips to Survive the Monday Blues

Monday up ahead. Hold on tight for curves. What do I need to get through the week?

Here's my list of five sure-fire survivor tips.

1. Good night's sleep.  I usually fall short of a decent night's sleep. Low energy means your mind's not as sharp, your reactions not as true. A rested person is a confident person moving in synch with the zeitgeist. Otherwise you feel like a fish either out of water or fighting the current to stay in place. Not good. Get to bed early. Or else rely dangerously on...

2. Coffee. The sensory pleasures alone make this an essential element of my survivor kit. Usually I need to have a couple cups in the morning and it keeps me rolling all day long, or close enough to it. Coffee is the keel of my boat, it keeps me pulling straight in the water through the choppier parts of the routine, the unexpected outbreaks of disillusionment or ennui. With coffee I am a king in his castle; without it, I am on the menu.

3. Don't compare yourself to others. This is a hard lesson and the key to life-long resilience. There are always people ahead of you in the band. They are the ones who seem to have the Stradivarius put together while you are still stringing the bow and hoping the fiddle will somehow tune itself. Hey, you have a violin, don't you? Take your time, get it tuned, keep your head up and relax. You'll figure it out. In the meantime, fake it. And remember, in the long view, we are all playing a tune that's being called by a conductor we can't even see. Listen for the cues.

4. Time out for self-reflection. In my first few years of teaching, I would find myself in the bathroom and just stare in the mirror at this figure I barely recognized. How did I get here, I would ask the ghost in the mirror? And how the hell do I get out? What I slowly realized, once I got over the fact that I was not insane, was those moments with myself in the mirror were not a lunatic sort of panic but a very normal realignment. It was me recalibrating, reminding myself that I had a few things going for myself and basically it was going to be all right. Take those times with your literal reflection, or your self-reflection, whenever they occur in the day. Those are the times to let the noises fade away and then simply remind yourself that you're in your own corner. Everybody needs a fan, and you can be your own number one.

5. Enjoy the moment. Another hard lesson to learn. Every struggle has its reward, every challenge is a gift of God. You have no better place to be. And if you think you do, go find it.