- deskpilot
- Jan 20, 2025
Are you ready for Blue Monday?
Blue Monday is 'the most depressing day of the year' and falls this year on January 20th. The day is associated with feelings of sadness, low motivation, and a lack of energy. But – good news! - you can take action to protect yourself from the doom and gloom.
While many commentators will blather on about exercise, mediation, and not going on a massive bender, here are more practical and down to earth steps that you can take:
1. Avoid dismal stories about Blue Monday. Journalists will be wheeling out their lazy stories about Blue Monday – probably the same one they used last year. You don’t have to put up with this. Buy a Sunday newspaper and make it last through Monday. Or buy your favourite magazine instead. (Remember magazines ? Those things you used to read in WH Smith and then put back on the shelf.) But definitely don’t buy a newspaper on Monday.
2. Replace that non-non-stick frying pan. Few things in life are as depressing as a worn out non-stick pan. Fried eggs that should slide out easily are welded to the black bit on the pan, and get completely banjaxed as you try to lever them off with a spatula. Spare yourself. Replace that pan today!
3. Replace scissors that don’t work. Hot on the heels of dodgy pans are blunt or loose scissors. You know, the ones that chew feebly at plastic bags or bend your fingernails over instead of cutting them. Depressing, but fixable. Fight Blue Monday with a new pair of sharp scissors.
4. Sort out tax returns. Yes, they are due at the end of January, so you’ve messed it up again for this year. Make a diary note to do your tax return in December this year, so you can avoid a dismal January next year.
Finally, remember that there is no science behind Blue Monday.
Charities have co-opted it to promote mental health awareness and self-care, so – in a brilliantly self-defeating way - it gets more publicity than is healthy.
And social media likes to pile on and amplify the whole disheartening fiasco. So you should stay off social media on Monday as well. Instead, make a diary note to cut your fingernails with your new scissors.
Image: WikimediaImages - Pixabay
A British man was reeling in profound shock today after a work colleague took his routine “How was your Christmas?” to be a genuine question and answered it honestly.
”It was horrible,” said Dave Sparrow of Spratt’s Industrial Chemicals Ltd, nursing the cup of hot, sweet tea concerned colleagues had made for him. “I’d asked the question and practically walked away when I realised he was actually answering it. I was so close to getting away…
”He said Christmas had been a difficult time for him, since his wife had left and taken the kids with her. Which come to think of it he had told me, I just didn’t care enough to remember it.
“I was making frantic signals to colleagues across the room as he told me all about how he’d watched the King’s Christmas Message alone in his dressing gown with the curtains drawn, before eating a microwave turkey dinner for one and pulling a cracker with himself… They told me later they could see there was something wrong, but had no idea what to do. More likely, they were frightened of getting drawn into the conversation themselves.”
Sparrow said he planned to take the long way round to the toilet for the rest of the week to avoid walking past the man’s desk, lest he try to continue the conversation.
”It’s that feeling of being a marked man,” said Sparrow unhappily. “He’s got me down as someone who’s actually interested and sympathetic.
“Doesn’t he understand you’re supposed to say something like ‘It was nice to see the family, but even better when they left’, or just pat your tummy with a laugh and say you ate way too much, when people ask how your Christmas was? You don’t actually answer the question, for God’s sake.”
Image: StartupStockPhotos - Pixabay