The Sunday scaries are a feeling of distress that grows more intense as Sunday progresses. It’s not anything about Sunday in itself that provokes the Sunday scaries, other than its ephemerality. The emotion is all about the approach of Monday and all of its grinding obligations.
The weekend is a time of life lived on its own terms, and with a forgiving rhythm. Monday begins a five-day stretch during which we don’t set the terms of our own lives. We live according to the needs of the systems that surround us. Sunday is the countdown of the all-too-short hours of freedom from work and school. The Sunday scaries are thus the counterpart to a Friday Feeling, that wonderful, glowing feeling that comes from release from the work week.
In recent years, an expectation has developed for people to cultivate a sense of Arbejdsglaede – joy in their professional lives. Some people find this feeling authentically, through alignment with the purpose of their work, or through relationships with the people they work with. For most workers, though, happiness through work seems unattainable. Their workplace cultures are toxic, disregarding their humanity or expecting them to work at an unsustainable level of efficiency. Far too often, the pay people receive for their work isn’t enough to support their survival, much less a fulfilling life. Worst of all, as their own desires are forced to the side, these workers are now expected to act as if they enjoy what they’re going through.
The Sunday scaries share something of the dreadful anticipation used in horror movies to provoke the audience. As Sunday evening comes around, however, the source of dread is no supernatural phantasm, but is painfully embedded in the reality we come to face with in the light of day on Monday morning.
