​​​​Is Depression A Good Thing?

Can depression be helpful?

Depression helps alert you to positive changes that you can make in your life. In this way, some good can come out of depression, just like some good can come out of a fire alarm that alerts you to put out a fire and improve your situation.

Other than this, however, depression is of no value to you.

It’s important to appreciate this, because if you think that depression is good, important, or valuable to you in any other way, and turn it into some kind of friend, it will be harder for you to let go of depression and stop being depressed.

Right now, you’re going to learn how to avoid doing this, so that you find it easier to become and remain depression-free.

Why do I want to be depressed?

You can overvalue depression by seeing depression as a sign of intelligence or wisdom in a person. You can even go on to think that depression makes a person more thoughtful, deep, profound, real, or authentic in some way.

And following this train of thought, you can even start thinking of depression as being the hallmark of a good, considerate person.

All of these ways of thinking about depression have one thing in common: they will naturally make you struggle more with depression.

This is because you’re seeing a lot of positive value in depression, and you therefore will naturally be motivated to think and act in ways that make you depressed. After all, you’re seeing a lot of “good” in depression that makes you attracted to it!

Furthermore, you will naturally be afraid to stop being depressed, due to thinking that it would be a “loss” for you in some way. This fear of becoming depression-free is another powerful factor that will naturally keep you depressed.

Does depression make you better in any way?

As you can clearly see, romanticizing depression and overvaluing it will work against you and make you more depressed.

So before you create a list of thoughtful, intelligent people who struggled with depression (like Abraham Lincoln, for example), appreciate that their depression is not what made them special, wonderful, admirable, intelligent people.

Take away their depression, and they would still be special, wonderful, admirable, intelligent people.

Similarly, depression is not anything that makes you more special, wonderful, admirable, or intelligent in any way. If you have those qualities, take away your depression, and you will still be special, wonderful, admirable, and intelligent.

Indeed, appreciate that you can be a very smart, thoughtful, profound, authentic, considerate, special, happy person, and being depressed would not add any positive value to your life, or make you a better human being in any way.

Instead, it would only alert you that you could improve your thinking and lifestyle in some way. And that’s all it would do for you.

Eliminate depression without fear

The overall lesson is that if you see a lot of value in depression and think it makes you better in some way, you will start to think of depression as some sort of a good, wonderful thing that you want to keep, and that you are afraid to lose.

So you will be motivated to act and think in ways that keep you depressed, which will naturally prevent you from getting rid of depression.

Furthermore, if you do end up taking action to stop being depressed, it will feel like you’re making some sort of a sacrifice, as if you are giving up something of great value by no longer being depressed. This makes you dislike becoming depression-free, which makes it a lot harder to do!

For this reason, it’s important that you are absolutely clear in your mind that you are not making any sort of a sacrifice by eliminating depression.

Indeed, you have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain by becoming happy and depression-free, since your life gets better in every when you do, with no loss to you at all.

And this means that you can completely look forward to getting rid of depression, with anticipation and peace of mind, and without any fear or anxiety at all.


Next: Why Do You Want To Stop Being Depressed? →


You are here:

Section 4 Lessons:

  1. Is depression a good thing?
  2. Why do you want to stop being depressed?
  3. How to get rid of depression forever: 6 changes
  4. How to beat depression fast
  5. Is depression easy to cure?
  6. Can you beat depression on your own?
  7. Challenge your depression: 7 day depression challenge

Next Section In The Depression-Free Course:

Section 5


About the author

Hi, I'm Dave Fonvielle, the founder of Always Greater. On this website I teach you step by step how to be happier and more successful achieving your goals, whether it's completing a small personal to do task, like doing the dishes, or a large business goal, like launching a new product. Get my free 3 Tiny Habits for Being Happier & More Successful training for all of this right here.