What’s the purpose of Sundays anyways?

More than once I've found myself feeling lost - specifically on Sundays. I've grown up using Sunday as a rest day, not leaving my home preferably. Since I moved to Sweden, I've been noticing people making as many social plans as possible on their Sundays. Often conflicted about what I should do on my Sundays nowadays, I've decided to ask Google.

Photo credit: Akira Hojo, Unsplash

Every now and then I find myself chilling at home - on a Sunday specifically - by myself not knowing what to do. And feeling more lost than usual. Then, I remember how - when I was living in Germany - Sundays were the designated days to stay at home and do nothing. Whether it was time spent by myself or with company. The point was to stay at home. If people would ask me “Hey, you wanna meet up today?”, I’d say “Eh, no, thank you. It’s Sunday, how about we meet during the week or next Saturday?”.

Now, living in Sweden, I haven’t met a single person who prefers to stay at home on Sundays (maybe except me - occasionally). People seem to genuinely like to meet up with friends on Sundays, to actively go out on a Sunday and do something. I mean, why not? Because they simply CAN. Every store, most museums, cafés, and restaurants are open on Sundays, whereas in Germany most likely everything will be closed (except at airports and train stations).

This might be a cultural thing, but people here seem to like to meet up on Sundays generally. Several of my friends are non-Swedes (or grew up somewhere else in Sweden), but they, too, never seem to care whether to meet up on a Sunday or not. I probably should just deal with my melancholy regarding Sundays and get on with it. But then, I wouldn’t be me. So, I did the next best thing. I googled “What’s the purpose of Sundays?” the other day, and the results were quite interesting (to me at least). The following information probably comes as no surprise to some of you that people (mostly in the past, but even now) go to church on Sundays, meaning:

„Christians celebrate on Sundays because it is the day on which Jesus had risen from the dead and on which the Holy Spirit had come to the apostles.” (written and stated by none other than Wikipedia)

Apparently, Romans had used a period of eight days and considered it a ‘week’ for centuries, until in 321 CE Emperor Constantine established the seven-day week in the Roman calendar and with that designated Sunday as the first day of the week (Britannica, 2022). This would explain why Sunday is considered the first day of the week in some countries, while in others it’s Monday. From the country list with Sunday as the first weekday, that I’ve seen, I assume the countries are religious, e.g. the Philippines, Peru, etc.

As only religious-related results came up, I wondered whether there was more to Sundays. This time, I googled “What’s the deal with Sundays anyways?”, and the first thing that came up was something called “Sunday Scaries”. It sounded hilarious, and for a moment I thought: There, finally, some people who have the same kind of feeling of being lost or not wanting to do anything on Sundays especially when not seeing any other people. Well, it was not quite that. To be concise, this is the definition according to the website that’s actually called Sunday Scaries (2022):

”The Sunday Scaries are the feelings of worry, nervousness and anxiety that set in on Sunday evenings because of the impending doom of Monday when you need to return to work, school or reality.”

Huh, I for one don’t hate Mondays that much actually. I always considered Mondays to be a new beginning, but it’s easy to say for someone who is currently not working a usual 09 to 05 job (or here in Sweden where it’s most likely to be 10-06).

Would you consider yourself in the team I am lost on Sundays? Or Team I hate Mondays? Or another team completely? (You may be part of several teams, of course.)

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Resource links:

https://www.britannica.com/science/year

https://sundayscaries.com/blog/what-are-the-sunday-scaries-the-comprehensive-definition