The Cruel Irony Of Returning to Work on World Mental Health Day

Since, for the most part, the “celebration” of Columbus Day is increasingly racist, etc., it seemed inevitable that another, more politically correct holiday would need to take its place. While, yes, only a select sect will get something so obscure as World Mental Health Day off (just like the same select sect that gets Columbus Day off), most others will have to trudge into work on Monday all too aware of the cruel irony that it’s World Mental Health Day.

The sharp contrast between working in a cubicle and being mentally healthy is, surely, not lost on most office workers aware of what day it is. Anyone with even the faintest knowledge of psychology (and, frankly, everyone who made it into an office has a college degree that forced them to take a pscyh 101 class) will be able to recite the most quintessential line about madness: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” What could fit more neatly into this definition than cube life, and the expectation that maybe, someday, you’ll “get used to it”? Like the pleasant numbing of being frozen.