Blue Monday and the January Blues

A regular theme of therapy concerns anxiety around uncertainty and unpredictability, fear about what the future holds. There's a need to accept that uncertainty and unpredictability is part of life, which can be difficult. Alongside this are often issues of control, and accepting what we can and can't control about the future. This can all feel much more pronounced in January, when the whole year lies somewhat threateningly ahead.

These days people like to be armed with essential tools and resources to fend off all possible future short-term doubt and uncertainty. We like to have a map and a plan, especially when the answer to most things is available at our fingertips through a smartphone screen. We can always find a nugget of information or data that might help to smooth our path or allay our fears. We want a schedule or a structure from which things will not deviate. That way, we know where we are and where we're going and everything will be ok. 

But life can always laugh in the face of such things. As, for that matter, can death. Death is a thing in the future we might all legitimately worry about. So are ostensibly more trivial things, such as property maintenance issues (how I hate those), or the best route to a place you've never been before. Future uncertainty is well-established as a hugely profitable business concept. See insurance and stock trading. An ever erratic climate can help to ramp up anxiety about travel, transport, property maintenance. In stocks, futures allow investors to trade a certain amount of stock at a set price on a future date. It's a gamble. The future will forever make humans feel vulnerable.

But until time travel becomes possible, we can only ever physically exist right here in the present, where the future is not 100% knowable. But it can be worried about indefinitely. And it will almost certainly hold distressing pain and struggle on all sorts of levels (hiring contractors, eurgh). I wonder how this connects to the current mid-January time of year, a sense of sluggish malaise, a fear or reluctance to accept this new sprawling future, and the whole PR-driven concept of Blue Monday. 

In January, a frighteningly wide-open canvas of calendar is unfurled. We are right at the start. We have not climbed or crawled or ventured any distance. The entire year remains unwritten and unknowable, which is sort of scary. Not to mention that in the UK it's also largely grey and chilly, with only brief visits of sunshine. Springtime still feels years away. We might feel sniffly and congested. We might not be exercising a great deal or getting outdoors much. Things might generally have a weightiness about them, an increased sense of effort. Getting out of bed is harder. Twenty years ago a smart person working for UK travel business Sky Travel tapped into all this. A now legendary press release was scribed, with the intention of getting people to book holidays. Suffice to say, it got some traction, and Blue Monday was born. It suggested the third Monday of January is the most depressing day of the year because most people are financially depleted, the weather is rubbish, and new year's resolutions have broken down. There's no science to it of course. And there are no easy solutions until that time machine comes along. Apart from allowing time to pass, grey day by grey day, accepting the uncertainty, perhaps trying to refocus in a positive way (look at all that excitingly ripe potential, all that opportunity!) Or maybe booking a therapy session, or a holiday.