Blue Monday

January is a gloomy month. This isn't just a feeling you carry alone as you slip on the ice on your way to work in pitch darkness while cursing neoliberalism's broken promises. That January sucks is actually scientifically proven. At least sort of.

The year's bluest day fell on Monday, January 17, 2022. In 2005, psychologist Cliff Arnall determined that the third Monday of January is the date when people feel most dejected. It's due to a cocktail of unfortunate factors that hit simultaneously: it's cold and dark, there's a lack of motivation after the holiday season, and the guilty conscience from the excessive spending and eating of December kicks in.

On top of everything, this is also the date when most people give up their New Year's resolutions. Two weeks is apparently all we humans can manage before we stumble back into old habits. Suddenly you're no longer that keen on getting up at 6:01, running four and a half marathons, making a breakfast that covers every element of the food pyramid, and writing down three things you're grateful for.

Instead, it's the snooze button, coffee and a cigarette for breakfast, and a sinking feeling when your boss asks you to turn on your camera during the Teams meeting.

The upside is that it takes a lot for next month to be worse. As the saying goes, when you've hit rock bottom, there's nowhere to go but up! You've got a brighter year ahead of you — literally. If February should turn out to be equally tough, you can console yourself with the fact that it at least only lasts 28 days.

Everyone carries the January blues. You're not alone, to put it that way. As the beloved Norwegian singer-songwriter Bjørn Eidsvåg puts it (loosely paraphrased):

'I see that you are tired, but I cannot live January for you. You must live it yourself, but I will live it with you. I will live it with you.'

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This piece was originally published in Klassekampen (a Norwegian daily newspaper) in 2022.