You’re Not Depressed. Your Life Just Sucks.

Let's circle back to depression. You mentioned that a few times. And I've been thinking about this quite a bit in terms of depression. I think people miss, like, the actual sort of clinical diagnosis of depression. And they sort of lump it in with my life just sucks. And I personally think those aren't the same thing. What do you think? I think that the surest way to be depressed is to try really, really hard to not be depressed. I think about that for a minute. Like it's the people that just get obsessed with my life is messed up and what do I need to do to make it better? And maybe if I hadn't have done that and I can improve this part of myself, then maybe I'll feel better. And all that rumination and all that compulsing about our life, it does yield a miserable existence because we're never enough. But that experience of feeling sad and disappointed, that's called life. And we are in control of that many times. Like the decisions we make and the choices we make will yield either a sense of well-being and happiness or it can yield a sense of disappointment. Man, that does kind of suck. I got an F on this test or I'm 25 and I thought I met my partner and the girl of my dreams, but she dumped me. Well that called life Those experiences are very different than clinical depression Clinical depression is I not sleeping well I not eating well I don enjoy things the way I used to I have low energy My motivation off My concentration off low self excessive guilt hopelessness about the future Sometimes that turns into suicidal ideation That's clinical depression. And I think we just mix that up culturally. We're so, we feel like we're so entitled to this perfect life that doesn't have any issues that when we deal with the natural setbacks and issues of life that are in some ways connected to our lack of effort. We just are, we're dealing with, with what I call just a, a sad moment, a sad season, but that's not depression. So I think you're right on that. We're over diagnosing it culturally. And I think the younger someone is, the more likely they are to do it. If you talk to an average 15 year old, they all think they're depressed. Yeah. Yeah. I remember when I was 15, life's hard. You know, when you're a young person, you're going through a bunch of different stuff your body's changing do you have friends you fit in with this group or that group you know everyone's asking if you're like when you're around 15 16 are you gonna go to college you know at least when i was younger like what are you gonna do with your life i'm like i'm gonna be a fucking wwe superstar mate that's what i'm gonna be okay so i gotta figure it out you know but most people at 15 don't know what they're gonna do with their whole life i did yeah and i told everyone about it um but like i i think that's an important distinction that we we need to make between like depression and like your life not being very good. Like, and that's okay. Like I talked to a lot of young men and like, if a young man doesn't have any dating prospects, he has no close relationships, he's not making very much money and he still lives at home potentially. That a recipe for life not being the way you want it to be And that can make you feel very sad and inadequate and not worthy And those are really really hard things to deal with But that is not necessarily depression That is things that you can fix, but you've got to fix them one at a time. Very small steps to build like, okay, what do I need to do to like maybe be attractive to a female? Okay, I probably need a fucking shower and maybe need to start going to the gym. And like those are steps you can take. Now, for those that I've seen experience like real serious depression, sometimes it's not linked to anything. Sometimes it just it is what it is. I mean, I might be wrong on that. But when I watched my sister go through it, like life from the outside seemed great. She was an engineer. She had a boyfriend, but like she was still clinically depressed because she had something very different than her life not being very good. Maybe I didn't. I don't know if I explained that well, but that's my take. No, I think you I think you're on to something there, Aaron. And part of the dynamic, I think, culturally is we're so goal-oriented. Like we're so outcome-focused. It's if I can have this job or this house or this girl or this guy or this wife or this life, then I'll feel okay. And so we begin to define ourselves in terms of goals. And anytime we begin to focus on outcomes, we're only as good as our last win or our last loss. That's a miserable way to go through life, right? The metaphor I use is marathon running. If I say I going to run a marathon my whole life becomes about this goal And I not saying that bad but I am saying that if I could start with a value system about health so for me it would be, I want to be a healthy, energetic, able-bodied 75-year-old dude who's able to play around and throw a football with his grandkids in the yard. Like that's my goal. And then, or sorry, that's my value system. And then out of that value system, I have a goal and it might be to run a marathon. That's great. Or it might be to work out five times a week. And that's great. Those goals are awesome. We need goals. That's what helps us make progress. That's the actual steps that we need to take to live the life that we want to live. But the goals have to grow naturally out of what our value system really is. And the problem with a lot of us is we don't have a value system apart from outcomes, apart from the goals. We don't have anything that ultimately we stand on that we think defines us as a human being. It's the question of what makes me acceptable and worthwhile and valuable and lovable and significant. What keeps me safe in this world? What defines me? Because until we can answer that question, we're only gonna be as good as our last win or loss. patreon is the home of our exclusive community where we do bonus episodes live streams q a's and merch discounts and so much more patreon is the number one way to support this podcast and to support my mental health non-profit called you are loved