October has long struck me as the busiest, most serious month of the year. It's not just the sports calendar that peaks in October, although baseball, which is a snooze most of the year, is the obvious metaphor. In my experience in the corporate world (not in retail, and at firms where the fiscal year was the same as the calendar year), October tended to be the month in which the big decisions were made that determined whether or not this would wind up being a good year or not. Nothing was settled in August, September was devoted to increasingly serious sparring, and by mid-November it was getting to be too late to make a difference in the current year.

In the comments, a farmer in New Zealand described the impact on him of October (or, to him, April):

"The darkness and the bitter cold"

Even though the winters are not too cold and there is no snow here at 36 south latitude, they can be miserable with over 1000mm of rain .

My farming ancestors are from Sweden , Scotland and England. Farming engenders a low-level background anxiety and reaches a peak in the autumn , when the shortening days and lower light levels have an almost physical influence on me as a farmer.

The anxiety is much heightened as I do the mental inventory of stock feed for the winter, food in the deep freeze for the family, completion of summer tasks, enough firewood to see us through the winter etc. Some days I am literally running at this time of year, and as one gets older , there is certainly more awareness of one's genetic make-up and deep history and the resulting drives.