Tuesday, January 25, 2005

See? It Wasn't So Bad, Was It?

For the past few days, when I would log on to my computer at work and the MSN homepage would come up, I saw the same story headline, "Monday January 24 called the worst day of the year."  It seems that a British psychologist has calculated that January 24 is the most depressing day of the year.  While I don't go along with January 24 being the worst day of the year, I will say that the psychologist's theory makes perfect sense to me.  The doctor's formula takes into account numerous feelings to devise people's lowest point.  The equation was broken down into six factors: weather, debt, monthly salary, time since Christmas, time since failed quit attempt, low motivational levels and the need to take action.  If you were to figure this equation for the marjority of the people I work with, we would all be deemed clinically depressed, especially given the monthly salary and low motivational levels. 

Like I said, it makes sense to me.  Even though the days technically get longer after December 21, we usually have cold blustery days in January.  Meanwhile the majority of people break their New Year's resolutions to lose weight or exercise just a week or two into the new year.  And by the third week, the rest have most likely fallen off the wagon, torn off the nicotine patches and eaten the fridge empty by the third week.  As December's bills start arriving and workers receive their sad W-2 forms, there is no holiday cheer left by the last week of the month.

The psychologist devised the formula to help a travel company analyze when people book vacations.  It seems that people are most likely to buy a ticket to paradise when they feel like hell. 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Trust me, this is true.  Our travel agents are so busy, they can hardly keep up.  The first quarter of the year is by far the busiest for selling travel.