About a month ago, I was sitting at home attempting to sign up for spring term classes, when naturally I became overwhelmed with every aspect of my life. As someone that's been battling depression for nearly a year, this is unfortunately nothing new to me. If you have depression, you likely very well know that any act forcing you to evaluate life choices, or make life choices, or really, do things in general can be quite taxing.
During this particular situation, I actually felt the ability to do something productive, so I went ahead and sent an email to a former teacher of mine. In my email, I talked about my mess of a life that started right after my car accident, and ended with a request for advice-- any sort of advice.
The email I got in response was the best advice I've ever received. The first part of the advice I got was an ancient Chinese story that I will now paraphrase for you.
There once was a dude that won the lottery. Out of his excitement, he ran to his grandfather and exclaimed, "this is the greatest thing to ever happen to me!" Of course the grandfather was a bit of a cynic, so he just told him "maybe". A few days later, he's driving his rich person car to the bank to deposit vast amounts of money, like all rich people do. When suddenly out of no where, bad guys just appear and steal his car! They break his legs, take his money, and leave him defeated and alone. Feeling completely ashamed, he limps to his grandfather to tell him that if he hadn't won the lotto, this never would have happened, and he would still have legs-- so surely winning the lotto was the worst thing to happen to him. Naturally, his grandfather just responded, "maybe".
There's of course more to this story, but for this purpose, I can end the summary there.
Following this story, I was told that sometimes things seem bad, and turn out to be good. Or they seem good, and turn out to be bad. The truth is, there's really no way for us to know.
As I type these words out, they seem a bit like bullshit and ramblings, but as I read them for the first time in that email, I couldn't help but cry, feeling like I had just unlocked the secret to everything that has ever happened to me or anyone in the world.
The next part of the email was hands down the best advice anyone has ever blessed me with. I was told that the mind can mess with you in about a million different ways, but it doesn't have to win. And that my friends, is what I remind myself of everyday.
No matter how depressed I feel, I don't have to act that way. Granted, not acting depressed when you truly are depressed can be the struggle of a lifetime, but it's important to remind yourself that you're in control.
Whenever I'm feeling especially weak, I just think about my ability to not punch people in the face every time I'm angry, and I remember that I'm a strong woman in control of my emotions, no matter how fast I feel I'm spiraling out of control.
I hope these words of wisdom affect you as much as they affect me. Also, I just want to add the fact that I am certainly not the genius that crafted these few ideas, I'm just hopefully sufficient at paraphrasing.
