Blue Monday is coming

We have Black Friday, a Cyber Monday and now it seems a Blue Monday, which will be on the third Monday in January. It's not that we have a Monday when we all have to dress in blue or worship this beautiful colour. In fact, it is not a day to celebrate something positive, it is simply said to be the saddest Monday in the year.

But how and why has somebody determined that there is a Monday which is sadder than all the others in the year. Because let's not fool ourselves, Mondays are a bit depressing, coming out of the weekend with five days of work or study ahead of us, and that is a bit difficult to swallow.

So when in 2004, the holiday business Sky Travel experienced a considerable decrease in the number of reservations made in January, they decided to bring in the communications company Porter Novelli to find them a solution with respect to this.

The idea that they came up with was to create Blue Monday, that is to say the saddest day in the year, to create a publicity campaign which promoted the idea of booking a holiday to combat this day. So, the communications experts carried out a study that pinpointed that the third Monday in Januray was the day.

This was determined on the basis of various factors such as the weather, bills for Christmas outstanding, the time that had elapsed between making New Year resolutions and the first failure to keep them...

In fact, a formula was made that tried to demonstrate that mathematically it was absolutely correct. The formula was as follows: 1/8C+ (D-d) 3/8xTI MxNA. The "C" represents the atmospheric conditions, the "D" Christmas debts, the "d" the salary to be paid, the "T" represents the time that has passed since Christmas, the "I" the time passed since trying to give up a habit and not achieving it, the "M" is motivation and finally "NA" is the necessity to change our lives.

To give credibility to this study, the company required it to be verified by psychologists, not an easy task, as the majority did not believe in this study. However, a psychologist who collaborated as a professor at the University of Cardiff, Cliff Arnall, agreed to validate the study, it seems in exchange for economic compensation, not because the formula was to be trusted.

What is certain is that any resources to increase consumerism are used, as with Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It seems that one feels happier when buying things, be that objects or plane tickets, as with Sky Travel, who were only trying to save sales during the difficult month of January.

We all know that, for different reasons, January isn't an easy month. Perhaps it would be easier if we didn't get carried away by the craziness of the Christmas festivities and tried to enjoy them more simply and with more common sense.

Having said this, in the end who decides whether it is a sad day or not are we ourselves. We can decide how to affront the situations that occur in our lives. As it is known, we can either see the glass as half full or half empty, and if we opt for half full, whether it's a Blue Monday or not, we are capable of living as we want to.