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Depression in itself is not a problem. Depression is a warning. It is a warning that our thoughts and actions are somehow misguided. Depression essentially arises when we spend too much time brooding about ourselves and our lives, and is generally a symptom of self-centredness, a lack of concentration, or pure boredom.

Just like physical pain, feelings such as depression are signals that we should feel grateful to receive. We do not need to panic because we feel depressed. Usually we just need to relax and stop brooding or dwelling on ourselves. Or perhaps we need to stop criticising others. The time delay between a negative thought or action and the resulting depression will become smaller as we become more in tune with ourselves, making it easier to spot the cause of our depression.

“To see the essence in the unessential and to see the essence as unessential means one can never get to the essence, wandering as one is in the road of wrong intentions.
But to see the essence in the essential and the unessential as the unessential it is means one does get to the essence, being on the road of right intentions.” Dhammapada

Some things are important in life. Some things are not. We can never live a fulfilling life until we learn the difference and truly apply this knowledge. We’ve heard it said that money cannot buy happiness and yet so many people strive so hard to get it. Are these people stupid? Or is the statement “money cannot buy happiness” naive and untrue?

There is so much information on how to achieve our goals, but comparatively little on how to set our goals in the first place. Achieving a useless goal is inefficient, no matter how efficiently you achieve it. So to get anywhere in life, we must identify the essence. We must follow what is true and avoid any distractions. This is the only path that makes sense.