09-26-2012, 10:33 AM
(09-24-2012, 07:35 PM)Shannon Wrote: Mat, one of the things that has helped me tremendously is this quote.
"No man ever became great, except through many and great mistakes." William E. Gladstone
In other words, those who excel and succeed, do so because they understood that the only failure is failure to keep trying. When you don't achieve your goals, or fall on your face, it's only a lesson in how not to do what you're trying to do. That teaches you what you do need to do.
This is seen in the efforts of many successful people, including yours truly. I am a perfectionist, which is why I am always trying to refine my programs, build methods, experimentation, and create new ways of doing things. Every time I don't achieve my goal, it's just a lesson in how to achieve my goal.
Depression in your case comes from hopelessness because some part of you is afraid of failure. You have set the bar so high for what is acceptable that it cannot be achieved... or you think so... and that produces hopelessness, which comes out as depression.
This is definitely something that I'm trying to break down and create small steps instead of setting the bar too high. I mean it's great to achieve something, but this just feels like a recurring theme in my life.
In life mistakes are inevitable, I can't hide from stuff. But given my past history of social anxiety I feel at one point I decided that this made it very hard to be accepting of myself. When I was a teenager I just wanted to live a normal life without constantly feeling on edge. I really didn't care about being popular, I just wanted to be able to be myself without the intense anxiety and hypersensitivity to others. And after a while of not being able to deal with that anxiety, it definitely produced feelings of hopelessness in me.
To me that bar was set too high in my teenage years. And even now, I've definitely improved with the help of the subs. But I feel like I'm still not giving myself enough credit for how far I've come. I always feel like I get too ahead of myself and need to focus on smaller steps instead of giant leaps. Because once I start giving myself too much to handle I get overwhelmed and start having doubts about my ability to handle it. This in turn leads to depression because I feel like I can't make it in life. And once I hit that low, then I really need to focus on small things and not get any more overwhelmed.
Now that I think about it, I've felt a lot of this before about 2 years ago. When I had no idea what I was going to major in for college or do with my life. And those thoughts weigh heavy on my mind. And in high school it was always about do xyz, make sure you get into a good college, blah blah. There was this huge rush to get into college, build up your debt in student loans, and then get a degree that maybe you were happy with. God forbid you go to school late when you actually know what you want to learn about. The mentality of oh you'll figure it all out in college, just go, enjoy yourself. I don't know maybe it works for some people, but there were a hell of a lot of kids out there that went to college and partied their assess off for 3 years and then the real world hit them. And maybe their parents paid for college, in which case they don't have a care in the world. Maybe they've already got a job set up for them when they get out of college with some rich uncle or relative.
I've always been the kind of guy to analyze why I should do something. I don't do as I'm told just because everyone else is doing it. If anything I hate how some people don't question anything and just go along with it. I went to a community college because it was cheaper and also because I still didn't have any idea what I wanted to do. I thought I'd figure it out and I graduated with an associates. But I've got something under my belt, not sure if I do want to do it.
I just wish I could straighten out my head enough to figure out what I'd be happy doing because depression just saps the life out of you and you lose a lot of enjoyment. Makes it hard to get the right perspective.
And maybe a bit of that depression is just because of some of the attitudes in the U.S. The every man for himself mentality that some individuals have. Or the I'll step on everyone else and treat them like garbage so I can be on the top. Or the privileged rich individuals who are deluded into believing that other people aren't rich because they don't work hard enough, meanwhile they inherited their fortunes from family members. And that's not a dig at wealthy people, I admire people who can make a lot of money without compromising values or belittling others. I don't like individuals who are deluded into believing that because you don't make a lot of money you aren't trying hard enough or view themselves higher up than you or are incredibly greedy.
And there are really good people living in the U.S. as well. Just the negative sticks out like a sore thumb. For that reason I also hate the news. I still don't understand why there isn't a positive news network. But maybe it's just like anything else, to use fear to manipulate people. I believe there are more good people in the world and the bad people are in the minority. But the media leads us to believe that there is more negative than positive going on in the world.
