ALL ON A MONDAY MORNING

-SPEACIAL FEATURE-

It Really Feels Like #What on a Monday Morning to Get Set for Work

· A short column on the weekly ritual we all recognize,  and somehow survive.

Monday morning doesn’t begin when the alarm rings; it starts the night before, when Sunday’s light gets thin and the WhatsApp blessings arrive like clockwork. You do the mental maths, if I sleep now, I’ll get enough, all while pretending you don’t see the shirt you meant to wash. In that quiet negotiation with reality, you accept the first truth of Monday: preparation is mostly psychological. You’re not just picking clothes; you’re choosing courage.

Then the alarm. It never sounds neutral. It’s an intrusion, a reminder that rest ends and the week begins whether you’re ready or not. You rise slowly, peeling yourself from comfort the way a bandage peels from skin. The first minutes are mechanical: water on your face, a shower that resets the body before the mind, tea or coffee sending up steam that feels almost ceremonial. You call it breakfast, but on Mondays it’s really a vow: I will show up.

Outside, the city is already in motion. In Abuja’s morning light, streets pulse with a familiar choreography, keke gliding past, buses filling, vendors arranging trays of small mercies for the commute. There’s a soundtrack to it all: the clipped conversations, the early laughter, the horns that insist everyone move forward. You join the current, half awake, half determined, and discover something useful: momentum is a kinder force than motivation on a Monday.

The emotional terrain is mixed. There’s resistance, a tug from the warm place you left, but there’s also relief in routine. You know what to do, even if you don’t feel like doing it yet. The inbox will sting; the meeting will test your patience; the to‑do list will look longer in the morning than it did on Friday afternoon. Still, the act of stepping out the door rearranges the weight of the day. Once you’re moving, you’re lighter.

“On Mondays, tea isn’t a drink; it’s an agreement with yourself.”

By mid‑commute, you’re scanning the week, not with dread exactly, but with calculation. What needs early energy Wednesday? You play? What can wait until these small games because they turn a mountain into a path. Monday rewards anyone who lowers the bar from “inspired” to “in motion.” Small first wins matter: an email sent, a plan clarified, a call returned. They’re proof that the engine still starts.

There’s also the cultural rhythm that frames the feeling. The city’s urgency is contagious, the street a reminder that work isn’t only emails and deadlines; it’s livelihoods and routines woven together. The hawker selling water at the junction is on their Monday too. The security guard who nodded you in, the colleague already cheerful (suspiciously so), the driver threading traffic like a surgeon, everyone is performing the same ordinary miracle: showing up again.

If Monday has an unspoken mercy, it’s this: it doesn’t ask you to be brilliant, only consistent. The first hour is the heaviest; after that, you’re negotiating with possibilities, not obstacles. You start the week with borrowed energy, from habit, from caffeine, from the pace of the street, and sometime before noon, a spark returns. Not joy, necessarily, but momentum. It’s enough.

And yes, part of Monday the quiet promise’s tolerability is of Friday. That future sweetness makes the present effort feel less like punishment and more like a cycle. You climb because you remember the view on the other side. You dress, you step out, you take your place in the flow, and the city receives you, as it does every week, with noise and colour and the simple kindness of routine.

So what does it really feel like to get set for work on a Monday morning? It feels like leaving a warm room for clear air. Like choosing motion over mood. Like remembering that life is mostly made in the ordinary minutes, the boiling kettle, the buttoned shirt, the first step through the door, and trusting that once you begin, the rest of you will arrive.