DepressedThinker wrote:Hello again...
,,, if i got a nice career but someone gave me some advice that help me get that career,whereas if i didn`t use that advice i wouldn`t of got that career, i`d get depressed because inside i`d know it`ll only be because of their help,and so i`d feel like a failure.
Does this make sense?
Thanks
I know the above was offered as only an example - but the fact that you bring up such is symptomatic of possible counterproductive and self-defeating imaginings. Permit me to explain what I mean. I respect you. And what I say is an expression of my innermost self, spoken in a spirit of brotherhood.
The sense I see in it is this: you are telling yourself over and over, "I am a
failure {now that I am in this career - when so many others, all over the world are out of work} - and I
must repay the debt
"
"I
owe that advisor !! I absolutely have to repay him in some way, and I'm not sure I can!!"
Such thinking (self-talk) is thoroughly illogical and irrational. Can you
prove any of those propositions you are repeating to yourself on an endless loop, like a compact disc with a crack in it that keeps repeating the same garbage. Of course not.
So why believe it?? You, my friend, are "should-ing" on yourself. You can't back up the sentences with evidence, nor support them with any rational thinking. Drop them. Just STOP telling yourself these silly notions.
Dispute them, as Socrates would if he were here ! And once you see that the thinking won't hold water, talk sense. Then you will not feel depressed.
You will then experience a positive emotion. Tell yourself something else that you can back up with good supporting arguments.
{ Substituting some reasonable thoughts - affirmations - and repeating them - is a technique that often works. Lists of these can be found on the web. }
Isn't it rather preposterous to believe that if someone gave you a hand, and helped you advance in life, that you personally owe him a favor? Isn't it likely that someone in his past did exactly that for him, and he is just passing the blessing along by giving you a boost. Once you are successful, you may do the same, you can "pass if on", pay it forward.
None of us are "rugged individualists" as the mythology would have you believe. Every one of us is the beneficiary of evolution from way back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Did you invent alternating current (usable electricity)? No. Tesla did. How can you pay him back? Did you invent all those other benefits you use every day: the flush toilet, soap, faucets, lighting systems, newspaper presses, the internet? No. Yet you are beneficiary. Did you invent human culture? Did you, by yourself, teach yourself to speak? Did you give yourself the love and hugs, at a crucial stage of your development, that enabled you to live to this age? No, someone did - maybe a nurse, or a loving woman who enabled your survival. Be grateful.
And know that you can never repay all these people. Cease and desist depressing yourself
For it is you who does it to himself. Admit you are the cause of this nonsensical thinking in which you've been indulging.
Change the thinking, and you will change your life. That is the insight of the latest research in Cognitive Psychology.
You can't afford the luxury of a negative thought. Nor can I. Study up on Positive Psychology and learn of the benefits that accrue.
That will help motivate you to become an optimist. An optimist names things, and situations, so that he can sensibly call them "good." This makes him or her into a realist, who calls a spade a "spade."
