Depression is no fun. It is an unmanageable, seemingly incomprehensible cloud of sadness. It is a stifling of feelings where we feel disconnected to ourselves and can’t seem to think or feel a way out. How should we react when the cloud of depression looms over us? Do we fight our way out with positivity and diligent scheduling? Do we wait patiently? Do we embrace the smothering feeling? Do we push forward to manifest other feelings that may be there like anger, frustration, and sadness.? I have tried all of these things when depression hits. Yet they never do seem to be the best course of action.
First of all, why does depression happen? It typically occurs for me when I am confronted with a certain reality that doesn’t make sense and doesn’t fit into my current world view. I lose my sense of purpose and become unmotivated. The true feelings behind depression are: I was wrong, and the following despair of I don’t know what is going on or what I’m doing.
My tendency when confronted with an undesirable reality is sometimes “I must not have been trying hard enough” or I try to come up with a new set of world views or goals quickly so that I can direct my thoughts away from the pain and find purpose again. However, this hurried response doesn’t lead to much growth or learning as I only have a bitter aftertaste and feeling of the situation. And once again, like Icarus, I will fly too close to the sun once again to come crashing down, only to again try to fashion a new pair of wings. Instead of always flying, perhaps the way forward is to walk on earth with grounded steps. We want to believe in big ideas, but the world simply does not work like that.
So, it is only human to experience that many times as our ideas clash with the realities or perceived realities around us. With this in mind, could depression be a possible catalyst for growth through acceptance of ourselves and the world around us? Perhaps it can be viewed as a transition learning phase drawing from our erroneous hypothesis and the actual results.
So back to our question of: what should we do when we are face to face with our faulty hypothesis and feel our world crumble? The seemingly logical step is to examine, accept them for what they are, and and see if there’s anything we can learn from them. Use these tidbits of information to reshape our world view and gain wisdom. We must be careful not to create overreaching blanket judgements about the world such as “I always fail when I try things” or ” It’s never going to work”. In these cases we are injecting too much meaning into what has actually happened. We must remain objective and see through to what is actually going on and what we are feeling.
For example, did we just get rejected? After a rejection from someone and we may have feelings of frustration, anger, then sadness. These feelings coupled with the actual sitation can teach us about how to. have a different mindset when approaching goals and putting ourselves out there in the future. Maybe we can try differently or set new expectations for what we aim to achieve.
The biggest contributor to depression it seems is an inflated confidence in a certain world view like “working hard will always bring success”. The world is more subtle than these blanket beliefs. Even though we work hard, there may still be many times where we fail. A better version of the previos statement is that hard work can generate results and we have a better chance at success if we analyze the results and move ourselves into a position and mindset where we can achieve more of the results that we desire.
What is the lesson here today? I encourage you to let go of grandiose, overreaching world views. I encourage you to keep trying without necessarily the expectation of a certain outcome. Perhaps the lesson of our lifetimes is to learn more about ourselves and the world around us. That is all. More compassion and understanding for us and the world. Next time you experience depression don’t freak out. Take it is an opportunity for growth.
There is also depression related to existentialsim: the knowlege of death, uncertainty, and the finiteness of our knowledge and abilities and it’s inevitable cargo of meaninglessness, but that I will not address in this article. But that too can be accepted and beneficial towards living a meaningful life if we are open to examining their significance.