What About Seasonal Depression?

QUESTION:

Do you think there is anything to seasonal depression? At the very least I do wonder if it is easier to think more positively when the sun is shining. I seem to have an easier time of it. I struggle to find things to do to fill my time when it's rainy, and since I live in the Northwest now...it seems like it’s always rainy! Going to be getting dark at about 6pm...rainy on the weekends...oh boy! Scares me.

ANSWER:

Maybe this sounds harsh, but this is what I think about seasonal depression. It may be a diagnosis for people who think too much about how they are feeling and do not think enough about what they are doing to move forward with their day. As Shakespeare put it, “there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

Downer thoughts are just downer thoughts. Why think downer thoughts about the rain.? For me, personally, I love the rain because we need it so badly here in Southern California. The rain might have saved thousands of people's houses here that burned in the last wildfires. Imagine how those old farmers in the 1930s would have blessed the rain that might have saved their crops.

People will always find excuses for why they are feeling bad. People feel bad because they do not think the things and do the things that would make them feel good. Curl up with a good book and thank your lucky stars that you are not blind and so therefore you can read and see the rain around you. Thank your lucky stars that when it rains you have a roof over your head and don't have to sleep out in the street as millions of people in the world have to do.

We can’t have a grateful thought and a depressive thought at the same time. So we have to choose which one we are going to think. Which do you think is the better choice? A. B. Curtiss