My Attempt at Explaining Why You're So Miserable (and Why I'm Not).

Aside from diagnosed depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, etcetera (which actually sounds like a mental disorder in itself, if it's following a list of others), there seems to be a lot of unhappiness in the world. A lot of people have tried to explain this phenomenon. Some blame the mundane, repetitive lifestyle that much of America adheres to (another side note- repetitive is a very repetitive word to type). Other experts blame new social media for the sudden surge in depression- as in, because (most non-dramatic) people only post good things about themselves on Facebook etc., we see others as having much better lives than we are, and this makes us depressed because we think we are doing life wrong. The ideas as to why everybody is so miserable get more bizarre from there (theories range from governmental brainwashing by way of the public schooling system to hormonal damage and restructuring due to the over-use of birth control), but it seems to me that all of these theories are either bogus, or have holes.

If we were to go with the theory that our mundane, repetitive lifestyle is the cause of our unhappiness, why is there such a sudden surge of it now? You know, when human life is more exciting than it ever has been (besides, maybe like... the middle ages. But even then, life was repetitive and mundane for most people). We have so much to do these days, it's shocking that we could still be depressed. I mean, if you move back a hundred years, daily life consisted of going to work for 12 hours a day every single day of the week and constant fear of death from those jobs. Two hundred years ago, daily life was just farming... all day, every day, all year. We have more variety and excitement in our average citizens' everyday lives than average citizens have ever had. Ever. So why the sudden surge of depression?

The social network theory fails to make sense as well. Why? Because the number of people who use social media to talk about how much their lives suck is higher than those who use it to talk about how much their lives rock. Because people are constantly plastering their drama all over facebook. Because tumblr. Seriously, just look at anybody's tumblr. If people are trying to portray themselves as awesome people with awesome lives with social networks, they don't do a very good job of it, especially because anybody who DOES do a good job of it is labeled fake.

The other two theories I listed are easily debunked with the questions "So then why do private school students have a higher depression rate?" and "Why do men get depressed too?" so the question of just why is everybody so depressed remains unanswered.

...UNTIL NOW.

I too used to ponder this question for hours on end while walking in circles around my house (those of you who know me can attest to the fact that that is exactly what I do), and I was never able to come up with a conclusive answer. As somebody who spent a very long period of his life in state of depression, the question of "Why?" was always very prevalent in my thoughts, and it was something that I could never exactly answer. If it was because "my life sucked," an abstract excuse to sulk that most people, including I, have used on several occasions, then why was I still depressed even when my life got considerably better than it had been before ninth grade? Why were my friends so depressed about the way their perfectly normal and should-be-happy lives were going? I would think about this for HOURS on end. Literally. This question bothered me, and I could never find an answer.

...UNTIL NOW.

On accident. I found the answer on accident. Thinking about it now, life had been hinting at it for a long time, and I feel stupid for not realizing it earlier, but hey, nobody else did, so I guess I should feel good about myself for realizing it at all. For a while, it was my little secret to being happy, and I was proud of that, so I never told anybody...

...UNTIL NOW.

Because I feel bad keeping the truth from all of you. Alright, story time.

Watch this music video real quick.

We're going to skip the fact that the family has a very good reason to be depressed for the time being. I might come back to that later, though. We'll see. The reason I showed you this video is because it is statistically accurate, by which I mean, in most car accidents where the driver of one car is drunk and the driver of another car is not, the intoxicated driver will live, and the law-abiding citizen will die. That seems really unfair, doesn't it? Why does life work out like that?

A few months ago, a few things happened, and my life went pretty south. NO, I didn't get in a drunk driving accident. There were major stressors in my life, I was under a lot of pressure from a lot of different angles, and I was slipping back into depression. The stressors were a combination of unexpected difficult schoolwork, an unexpected health issue, and a very unexpected turn of events revolving some major friendships in my life.

So What was I gonna do? I was on a metaphoric collision course with a drunk driver, and I was the sober person trying to control the situation. What answer did I metaphorically have for that, considering it makes absolutely no sense at all given my actual situation?

Research drunk-driving crashes.

Okay, that isn't actually what I did, but it's a perfect segway, so let's pretend for a moment that I did. The sober person dies. The drunk driver lives. It's way too common of an occurrence to be a coincidence, so their MUST be a reason... and as it turns out, there is.

In the seconds before a crash, a sober person will realize what is about to happen. Their body will stiffen, they'll jerk the wheel, they'll do everything they can to keep from crashing, even though their brain has already calculated that the crash is inevitable. Once the crash occurs, their body is still tense, and they try to control their movement to "minimize" the pain and damage, because that's what we, as humans, instinctively do. Unfortunately for our instincts, that's not how physics works. Because the sober person is trying to force their body to work against physics, they get whiplash, and they make the situation worse for themselves. They inadvertently cause their own death by trying to control the situation.

The drunk person is impaired. They do not realize they are about to crash. Their muscles are relaxed. They enter the crash and let their bodies go with the flow as the forces caused by the crash manipulate their body. They don't fight it. They don't cause their own injuries. They survive the crash.

It was about this time that I realized what was each of the stressors, as well as most of the stressors that I've had in my life, had something in common: They were unexpected. More-so than that, I had expected things to go a different way, and they didn't.

That's when it clicked. There was finally a reason for my depression. I looked at the people around me, and it was the reason for everybody else's too. The reason- the root of all of the depression surrounding us- is our expectations.

It makes sense too. In the past 50 years, our expectations have gotten considerably higher. Where as 50 years ago, you could expect to work in a factory and make a good, middle-class living, we now expect to go to a four year university to get a high paying job and a nice big house and retire rich and achieve happiness, the last of which is a goal/expectation that is literally not achievable. Expectations of us have grown exponentially as well, and when all of these expectations are thrown as us, our first instinct is to control the situation, and that's where everything goes to hell.

To put it simply, the reason that I can see behind everybody being so depressed, is because people have unrealistic expectations of everything, and when things don't go as planned, they unsuccessfully try to control the situation back toward their unrealistic expectations, and, naturally, it almost never works.

The solution? Stop expecting so much, and stop trying to control every situation. I gave up on my expectations of the world a long time ago. I think that was the exact moment my life began to rock. As soon as you learn to go with the flow and just take things as they come, you will be much happier, and much less prone to stressing yourself to the point of depression.

I'm not saying to stop caring- ABSOLUTELY not! Going with the flow is not the same as apathy. It's just a way of rolling with the punches and getting right back up. Let's go back to that music video for a second- you can't expect somebody to lose a family member and not be depressed! Likewise, you can't expect to never be depressed. It's a perfectly normal emotion that you'll experience from time to time, for example losing a family member in a drunk driving incident.

I'm also not saying to stop expecting things altogether. A better strategy is to realize that most of your expectations are probably unrealistic, and stop expecting those ones to protect yourself from disappointment. THAT WAY- if you stop expecting something that you want to happen because it's unrealistic, but then it DOES happen, you'll be MUCH more pleased (and much happier) than if you expected it all along. (That in itself was an unexpected perk...)

Finally, I'm not saying not to lead. If you're a leader, then LEAD dammit! Just don't CONTROL. A true leader can tell the difference between the two, and will know how to roll with the punches instead of breaking down.

LIFE GOES ON. and depression keeps you back. I guess the simplest way to summarize everything I have to say is this:

ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES and DON'T LET THEM GET YOU DOWN.

And most importantly: Expect the punches- because they ARE coming. Nothing goes the way it's planned- just look at any episode of Scooby Doo. No matter how much people tell us that it is or that it should be, life is not fair, and life is not perfect. Stop expecting the two of those, and watch your level of happiness rise daily.

This year was different. I lost two of my best friends, it was the most distant I've been from the leadership team, I wasn't able to go to my dream school, I had a LOT of hard school work, my absolute best friend was 80 miles away, and I had no money for pretty much the entire school year. By all expectations, it should have sucked. So why was it the best school year I've ever had?

Because I stopped expecting my life to be perfect, rolled with the punches, and never let it get me down.