Depression

 A few days ago,I read a passage from a book called "Reclaim Your Heart" by Yasmin Mogahed.After reading it,it changed the way I view my life.It was definitely an eye opener.I discovered this book through a picture of a portion of the book on Twitter.It caught my eye (and my heart).I thought it was really interesting so I looked it up on the internet and my search brought me to this life changing passage.It was regarding depression.Depression is nothing new in today's time.We see an increase number of depressed people everyday and it worries me.Not only does this occur among adults and teenagers,sadly,among kids as well.Why is this happening?

The author said the reason why we are depressed,or simply sad,is because we depend our happiness on things that are inconsistent.Inconsistent things such as our friends,our family,our other halves and et cetera.For example,when we depend our happiness on our friends.We expect them to act in a certain way that we like.We expect them to do the same things that we would do for them.But when their actions are not up to our expectations,we get frustrated and sad.It is also the same case in depending our happiness on our parents' happiness.When we fail to make them happy,we get frustrated and sad.Though,we should still set our parents' happiness as one of our priorities.Another example,when we depend our happiness on our other halves,we expect them to love us in a way that we want them to.We expect morning texts from them but when their actions are the opposite of our expectations,we get frustrated and sad.Last example is depending our happiness on our freedom to go out.This might be relatable among us teenagers.When we want to go out with our friends,sometimes our parents let us but sometimes they don't and when they don't we get frustrated and sad.Do you see the pattern here? The emotions ensued,the frustrations we feel,are likely to lead us to depression.If you noticed,we have high expections from people who are not in any way perfect (we are humans after all) and who are not guarenteed to give what we expect,all the time.Do you understand now when I say we depend our happiness on inconsistent things? When we depend our happiness on inconsistent things,it is as if we are letting ourselves to be in a vulnerable state.We've been depending our happiness on the wrong things.We were borned with a natural love for perfection.We seek for perfection.We seek for stability.We seek for things that will constantly make us happy.But what we don't realised is that there is no such thing as "perfect" in this world.But we are living in times where we are striving to make this world perfect.We are striving to make this world like "Paradise",to the point where we forget the main reason why we live.The main reason why we are breathing.She said if this world is perfect,if this world is "Paradise" then what do we call the next life? The only thing that is perfect is Him.He is the only one we should depend our happiness on for he will give what we expect from him,with no doubt.

After reading this,I learned to tolerate with other people better when they act against my expectations.I learned to not overreact on unnecessary things.I realised that we are all humans,we are not perfect,we are not mind-readers.

I wouldn't call myself a perfectionist,but I've always seek for perfection.And I believe I am not alone in this matter.And when things don't go my way.I used to get really frustrated and blamed myself.But as I grow up I realised that things always happen for a reason.The reason could be something that we'll discover instantly or it could be something that we'll find out after years.We'll think back and say "Oh,I guess that's why it happened".It may be hard at that moment but it will make sense one day. I guess,we should just strive for the better without forgetting our Creator,be strong when the road gets bumpy and just live happily with a smile :-)

Lots of love,

Diyanah Nadrah