The Third Monday in January

Tell me--how have I lived 35 years without knowing that the third Monday in January is officially the most depressing day of the year? I've always waded through January with a vague grey-colored discombobulation, not knowing all along that my feelings were validated. And now this: I have missed the most depressing day of 2008 as it was last Monday! Talk about depressing! Even more depressing is ending these sentences with exclamation points!

It is called Blue Monday. Surprisingly Blue Monday has nothing to do with the 1983 New Order song of the same name or even Fats Domino. No, it is actually a mathematical equation first devised by Dr Cliff Arnall, former lecturer at Cardiff University. The mathematical equation is this:
The equation uses six immediately identifiable factors; weather (W), debt (d), time since Christmas (T), time since failing our New Year’s resolutions (Q), low motivational levels (M) and the feeling of a need to take action (Na) which is funny because here I have been thinking (Na) was the chemical compound sodium or even Narcotics Anonymous depending on which social circles one frequents.The equation calculates that Monday, January 21, 2008 was officially the worst day of the year, when the Christmas glow faded away, New Year’s resolutions were broken, cold winter weather set in and credit card bills accumulated in mailboxes.

Going forward I think I will make the third Monday in January an official holiday (Sorry MLK). I will take the day off, nap in a greasy funk on the couch all day and eat cereal without enough milk. I figure it might be the opposite of my birthday when I have all these expectations of good times and then when the slightest thing goes wrong I feel sad. On Blue Monday if the littlest thing goes right I will feel a glimmer of happiness, and then feel disappointed that Blue Monday has not gone as it was supposed to.

Dr. Cliff Arnall has also calculated the Happiest Day of the Year. It is sometime in June but quite frankly I just don't want to know about it.

A note about the wearable pillow photo above, i.e. I need to get me one of these: Pillowig is a hand-made wearable pillow that comforts people during the tired moments in daily life.