I know I’m all about Mondays (what with there being a dwindling 4,000 of them that beg to be savored and all), and yet I’m the first to admit that Fridays win. I annoyingly sign Thursday emails off with “Happy Friday eve!” and I liberally splash “TGIF” around when Friday finally arrives.

It’s more than an innocent penchant for the most-fun-filled day of the week, though. I find myself yearning for Fridays at the possible expense of life that could be getting lived on paltry Wednesdays, for example.

“How is it only Tuesday?” I demand-ask The Husband (almost weekly, on Tuesdays). “Doesn’t it feel like it should at least be Thursday?” I am always relieved when he agrees with me. Others do, too. We lament the snail’s pace of the week until we can Really Start Living on Fridays at 5pm.

So if we’re rushing through 4/7 days of the week (assuming Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are in the safe zone), and sometimes even resenting those four days because DAMNIT THE WEEK’S NOT OVER YET, are we turning and burning through 57% of our lives, then? I might be exaggerating with that snazzy math to illustrate my point, but the truth still stings.

I am baffled by my hypocrisy. I want more life—an astonishingly alive life, as I refer to it—and yet I seem to want less of the present moment if it happens to fall on a Monday through Thursday. This discrepancy cannot possibly add up to a life worth living, can it?

Why are we rushing though the week (i.e., our lives)?

Some people’s jobs are deplorable; in that instance it’s obvious how the arrival of the weekend would put a temporary end to the misery. But that’s not the subject of this discussion. We’re talking about weekdays that are ostensibly fine, but somehow scorned because of their un-weekend-ness. I consulted psychological science for a few explanations re: this cockamamie behavior. Here are four ideas…

#1: We tend to like our lives in the abstract, but less so in the weeds.

We love the idea of living a long and lustrous life. This reflects the alluring possibility for more experiences and joys… that’s the macro story. The racing-towards-Friday mindset, in contrast, shines the glaring spotlight on the micro experiences that can be boring &/or stressful &/or monotonously full of TPS reports.

Wednesdays might never outgrow their “hump day” reputation because they will probably always be humpy. Maybe the garbage needs taking out, or the expense report needs completing, or any other micro story “to-do” needs do-ing. But the idea of a free weekend, the idea of a well-lived life overall? That’s an attractive macro story arc. We want the book to be longer—just not this particular chapter.

#2: Our brains discount the present moment when it’s in any way difficult.

This is called temporal discounting; we undervalue the present when it’s uncomfortable, and we overvalue the future when it promises relief. Humans: we’re so predicably disappointing.

The work week becomes something for us to get through, not live in. The Tuesday status update meeting sounds like drudgery compared to a Saturday full of anything but status update meetings. Time turns into an obstacle instead of a medium for experience. We rush through our days while simultaneously dreading running out of them.

How can we accept the ho-hum-ness of a work week? How can we learn to appreciate the unique satisfaction of overcoming the challenges in front of us?

#3. Meaning changes how time feels.

Research consistently shows that engagement stretches our perception of time, whereas boredom tends to collapse it.

When weeks feel interchangeable—like when Tuesdays are indiscernible from Wednesdays—we rush them. Yet when moments feel meaningful, we want them to linger.

This discrepancy, then, is less about hypocrisy and more about feedback. How can we make our days blur together less? Task-oriented weekdays are always going to gel together a bit, but we can spice them up with activities that get us into flow.

Let’s stop stacking the deck with bursts of meaningfulness exclusively on weekends and start engaging in hobbies and events and connections with others on random weekdays, too.

#4: The existential take.

This tension between “blow-you-head-off-it’s-only-Monday” and “TGIF” reveals something important: we don’t actually want more time. We want more life inside the time we have.

“Thank God it’s Friday” isn’t a rejection of midweek life—it’s an internal protest that we “didn’t feel really alive this week.” The question is now begging to be asked: how can we carve out a little more aliveness within the doldrums of our week?

Okay so now what?

I love this line by Anatole France so much it hurts: “The average man does not know what to do with his life, yet wants another one which will last forever.”

When weeks are rich, we don’t rush them. When they’re wanting, we sprint toward the weekend (which ironically aren’t as lively as we tend to fantasize they’ll be).

I now see that I am griping about it only being Tuesday because I have failed to make Tuesdays count. I want to stop going through the motions in the week. I am still allowed to say TGIF when the undisputed best day of the week arrives, but not because I’ve been a corpse all week and I need the weekend to bring me back to life. Maybe one day we’ll say TGIM? Okay, that’s a reach.