You know it seems like lately that a lot more people feel open about talking about depression, which is good. When I was younger I used to think depression just meant being so sad that you were crying all of the time and you couldn't even get out of bed, but that is not true. Depression comes in all different forms, and today it seems like a lot of us have a much better understanding of depression and what it looks like, for the most part. Depression affects a lot of us in a lot of different ways all of the time, and that is one reason why I think it is so important to disconnect from your phone or disconnect from technology in general on a regular basis. That is one reason why I try to take time out of my day and spend time reconnecting with nature. It is all to fight things in my life like depression.
One thing I have been thinking about a lot is how much we compare ourselves to other people in our lives. We spend so much time comparing our lives to other people's lives. Comparing our success to other people's success. Comparing our financial situation to other people's financial situations. I think this is a major cause of depression for a lot of people today. I know that can be a major cause for me. It can be so easy to start comparing our lives to the lives of people around us when we start to feel inadequate. Whenever we start to become self-conscious about how smart we are, how good looking we are, how skilled we are, we start to look at other people who we label as better than us and it confirms in us this fear that we are worthless. We start to wonder why we should even try because we will never be as good as them or as smart as them.
The problem is all about perception. The way we perceive how things are going in someone else's life is very likely not actually how they are going for them. On facebook and instagram we have become really good at using filters and putting really nice captions that make it look like our lives are incredible even if we are really depressed underneath it all. So we only see the filtered version of these other people and we start to believe that we are behind because we could never live up to that. Another problem with comparing ourselves to others is who is to say what level that person is on at the moment. If you just started playing guitar and you looked at someone who had been playing for years then of course that person would be better than you at guitar. Why would you compare your level one to someone else's level thirty? Stop telling yourself that you don't compare. You shouldn't be comparing yourself to others in the first place. The only person you should be comparing yourself to is yourself yesterday.
It all starts with you.
