Linda Blair
18 JANUARY 2016 • 6:00AM
It is Blue Monday, supposedly the most depressing day of the year.
It may be useful to know that Blue Monday was in fact created in 2005 by a British holiday company. The idea was derived not from the results of any in-depth research, but instead by using a calculation involving such factors as current weather conditions and debt levels. However, while it had no basis in science, the idea caught on, and now many of us have come to dread it.
‘Why, then, ‘tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’
Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2
However, you could enjoy it – in different ways perhaps, but just as much as you would enjoy a warm summer’s day. How can that be possible?
First, because you’re in control here. You can choose either to believe that today will be grim and depressing – and that’s what you’ll look out for, so that’s what you’ll find – or you can choose to believe it will be a nice day, in which case you’ll more likely to notice the high points. And although I could offer some psychological research to back up what I am saying, there’s no need. This truth – which is, by the way, the core of most psychological therapies was first given to us not by a psychologist but by a playwright and poet.
In Act 2 of Hamlet, the Prince is talking to his two friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, complaining that for him, Denmark has become a prison. They don’t see it that way at all, and disagree. Hamlet then offers up the cure for his dark mood – although he declines to take it – when he replies: ‘Why, then, ‘tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/wellbeing/mood-and-mind/how-to-beat-blue-monday/
