If I may steal Mark Twain’s quote “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it”, I would like to say that same thing applies to “Depression” that we are going through too. Everyone I talk to, believe me that just very few people in this cold winter – at some level depressed or saddened or feeling hurt about something. It could be that their credit card is maxed out, it could be that they are not getting new jobs etc. Even my friends in India wonder how I am doing when the market is so down.
I am not closing my eyes to reality – I know we are in recession (now that it is official) but I am baffled by how much people get stuck with something like this. We as humans have immense potential within us – we survived all these years. We are the best survival machine when it comes to Darwinism. One credit card declined can’t put a frown upon our faces forever. We are better than this.
I do believe that this is a chance to look at ourselves deeply. Not just at our bank balances, but deep within our psyches. It’s time to regurgigate our beliefs, thinking and how we deal with this so called ‘reality’. It’s time to hibernate. It’s time to get lean with all the things in our lives. It a time to test how much are we slaves to our senses.
Recently I got an email which talked about how a tree grows. When a tree grows taller, even before it grows taller – the first thing it does is to spread it’s roots deeper. Otherwise the height won’t be stable and it will fall. I think similarly, this depression time is the time for us to grow our roots deeper. It’s the time to make our bases stronger and then there would be a time for us to grow taller.
These are the times that bring out the best in us. These are the times that make us think creatively. The theory already exists in Business – it’s called “Theory of Constraints“. Just treat it as a constraint and see how your mind cooks up new solutions. I keep wondering “What is that life demands from me?” in these times. I don’t have the answer yet, but I for sure know that it’s not something I have already done in the past.
Peace to all the people who are on this path of transformation.
akbar's blog 
wow…loved your thoughts on depression and how to deal with it…