Today I want to talk to you guys about depression. Depression is something that we all have either dealt with, are dealing with, or will deal with eventually. Depression gets to all of us now and again. I do not care how great your life is or how sure you are that things will always be great, depression can hit you like a ton of bricks. What is weird is that sometimes you won't even know you are depressed. There were a lot of points in my life where, in hindsight, I can tell you I was depressed but I had no idea at the time that that is what that was. I had always believed that depression was this thing where you would cry all of the time and not be able to get out of bed or talk to anybody about anything because you were just so sad all of the time, but depression comes in a lot of forms.
While thinking about some of the times that I have been depressed I realized something. Everytime I have been depressed I have been obsessed. I am not talking about a healthy obsession. I want you to think about this when you are reading this. What unhealthy obsessions do you have right now in your life? I am going to be really real and really raw with this message so I know this might be hard for some of you to hear right now but I really do think that this message is important so I hope that you can stay with me. Most of the times that I have been depressed it has been because I was so obsessed with the things that I could not control. I have always been obsessed with external things that I have absolutely no control over.
When I have talked to a lot of other people about depression I have heard very similar things. I have heard that for a lot of us we become obsessed with things outside of ourselves like how many followers we have, or how much money we have, or why don't I have more hair, why don't I have more this, or more that, or why wasn't I born in a wealthier family, or whatever. It is always the external things that are outside of me that I become obsessed with and since I can't do much about them my obsession turns into this deep inner aching and I become depressed over time.
Depression is often the absence of appreciation. When we feel like we are going through storm after storm after storm it very often has to do with the fact that we can't see the forest for the trees. We start to get too caught up in the shadow that we don't have the sense enough to turn around to see the sunshine. When we feel depressed it is important to find the good things in life and dwell on them instead. We have got to let go of our unhealthy obsessions and become obsessed with what is going well for us in our lives. Become obsessed with the good.
It all starts with you.
