And so Blue Monday is upon us again.

Calculated based on a number of factors – weather conditions, debt level, time since Christmas, time since failing our new year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and feeling of a need to take action – today is apparently the most depressing day of the year.

Well ain’t that a great feeling when you wake up on this grey, dull Monday, another fun weekend over and a week of work ahead, only to be told to be miserable.

I’m bored with being told by the media and supposed ‘experts’ as to how I should be feeling on any given day of the year:

• I should be excited when I wake up on Christmas Day – in my case I have to set an alarm to ensure I don’t sleep through the whole day
• I should look forward to my birthday and having celebrations – as I’ve got older it’s just become another day and I actually choose to do nothing on my birthday
• I should be counting down the days to summer or a summer holiday as if that’s the only thing in life to look forward to – I don’t like hot weather and very rarely have a summer holiday (I go away when the kids are safely in school to make my holiday more relaxing)

And today I should, apparently, feel depressed. Yes it took me a while to wake up this morning – but I’m blaming that on the amount of walking I did yesterday on a cold and wet winter’s day which meant I needed more sleep than usual than anything else. But do I feel depressed? No more so than yesterday, or last month, or last summer when the sun was shining.

Ok, I’m not working at the moment so I don’t have that ‘back to work’ feeling every Monday, but even last year and the many years before that when I was working I’ve never found Blue Monday to be any better or worse than any other day.

Yes there are shit things going on in the world (I won’t use this as a chance to moan about Brexit and the upcoming moment of doom when President Trump becomes something people start saying) and it may be the middle of winter, but those things are outside of your control so why be depressed about them? So what if you ‘failed’ to stick to your new year resolutions? (You knew that would happen anyway so are you really surprised?!)

It’s another day. You’re alive. Live it to the full. Don’t let another media and marketing driven piece of nonsense get you down.

Happy Monday everyone!