I understand your feelings, but the cause of depression is not social media. From what you’ve written, the cause of yours appears to be an attitude in observing the world and yourself. In the case of social media, it becomes significantly magnified because social media is concentrated superficial information that you wouldn’t normally get in everyday activity. But all it’s doing is just giving you a lot more stuff at once. It’s not “causing” anything. It’s unfortunate that you’re compelled to compare yourself to others, to TV, to ideas, to expectations, and constantly find yourself lacking — but how did you get there? Take responsibility, which means take control. What unconscious assumptions did you make that have caused you to compare yourself to everything external and become overwhelmed? Only you can assess and change those — and it looks like you’re doing that, so that’s good! But social media isn’t doing anything TO you. I am a Gen Xer, and I can assure you that I was perfectly capable of getting depressed long before social media even existed. And I also know, because I have read history and interacted with lots of older people than myself, that countless generations of people before you or me have done a bang-up job at getting depressed as well, when Facebook wasn’t even a glimmer on the horizon.

After a lot of reflection, I have deduced that when I do get depressed, it’s not due to anything external. It’s due to something awakening within my consciousness, trying to emerge and become something. Humans tend to project internal conflicts externally, and then become embroiled in them without understanding what they’re doing. I have also learned not to resist or fight depression. The initial unconscious resistance to something internal is what causes the emergence of depression, and fighting the depression is what causes suffering. Resisting it as something unpleasant actually makes it far more unpleasant. Childbirth is not pleasant, but it brings a child forth. Depression can be a similar process, but within. Of course, if it’s due to a chemical imbalance, then it needs to be treated by a physician. If it’s due to something else related to childhood or difficult life experiences, its healing needs to be guided by a trained counselor. But it should also be addressed through creative activity to bring you to something you haven’t reached within yourself. If you have no realistic ground from which to base your expectations, ideas, thoughts, or motivation, then perhaps your first creative activity is to build that, from factual sources. You don’t want someone else to build it for you, do you? Then you’d be walking on their ground. But to do it, maybe you should talk to others about their real experiences, both positive and negative. Get a realistic sense of things, not one based on TV and movies and ten-minute conversions from regular guys into super-Ninja warriors just by lifting a couple barbells. That crap doesn’t really happen. If you want to be a Ninja warrior, talk a real Ninja warrior and find out what the hell it really takes to become one. Otherwise, all you have is fantasies. They’re fun, but not much real use.

If you have no clear sense of self from which to ground you, then you will continue to compare yourself to everything around you and find failure at every turn, and that is depressing. But you ARE developing a clear sense of self. Through your writing, yes — and from what you say, also through separating from stupid distractions like most social media and news and such — that’s progress. Keep going. Also, a sense of humor about yourself helps too. Focus on learning and on being able to laugh at yourself, not in mockery but in affection. Focus less on anguish. What you focus on grows to take over your life. Stop pursuing happiness; it will just run from you. Stop trying to shape it into your idea of what it should be. It knows better than to obey you, because it is wiser than you. Take up a hobby you love, like music or art or woodcarving or something non-competitive that you can just do for the sake of enjoying the doing of it. Take up meditation and learn to enjoy just breathing. Life is not all about accomplishing and achieving and winning and status in the eyes of others or yourself or whoever. It’s about doing something passionately just for the sake of doing it. It’s about listening. It’s about realizing. It’s about taking a walk. It’s about going and washing your bowl. (Famous Zen saying.) That is what brings true long-term happiness. Suffering is fleeting. Worldly achievements are fleeting. Failure is fleeting. Externally based happiness is fleeting. Living a mindful life is not.

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    Melanie Hahn-Greene

    Written by

    I spend my free time wandering around picking up random thoughts to see what’s under them. Oh, and I like chocolate.