The Nation 04 December 2017

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Time Magazine 11 December 2017 USA Edition

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Overcome Depression and End Your Suffering Now

Overcome Depression and End Your Suffering Now

Introduction: You Can Change

Let me tell you a little about my journey. Back in 2011, I was a freshman in college, and I was absolutely miserable. I was failing my classes, 40 pounds overweight (something quite new for me), and my girlfriend of a year and a half had just broken up with me. I had severe social anxiety, so I had almost no social life whatsoever, and I was in the midst of a deep, dark depression that left me wallowing in sorrow and self-pity practically 24/7. Most days, I couldn't even muster the willpower to get out of bed. I drowned my sorrows by drinking alcohol 3 nights a week and eating fast food 2-3 times per day. I was in a vicious downward spiral. It was sink or swim for me. I decided to swim, and here I am writing this, happy as ever, in an attempt to share with you my knowledge on what it takes to overcome depression. First of all, I want to let you know that no matter where you stand at this moment, you can change. You can live your dreams and go on to do amazing things in the world. If you are reading this, then you are on the right track.

This book is going to provide you with multiple strategies and tips that you can use to steadily climb from the pits of depression to the heights of happiness. I can't tell you it will be easy, but I can assure you it's worth it. Everything you want is only a decision away. If you commit to your own growth and vow to never give up, then you will do extraordinary things and be an inspiration to many. If you lack belief in your ability to overcome your depression, then that's okay, because this book will provide you with the hope and inspiration that you need. I'm here to offer you a helping hand, because I know that none of us can do it alone. My love goes out to you. I know you will make it through this. Let's explore what it's going to take, shall we?

Internal vs. External

From experience, I'm convinced that depression is completely internal, however, external factors can play a huge role in determining your inner environment (thoughts and attitudes). It's very easy to place the blame on these external circumstances, but it should be avoided at all costs. Instead, you need to take complete responsibility for your current circumstances and realize that you have unconsciously created them. You may not have wished for them, but through a series of thoughts and decisions, you have brought them into your life. This means you are also responsible for changing them if that's what you desire.

Some external things that may be having a negative impact on you could be family, friends, your job, the television shows you watch, the music you listen to, the food you eat, or the cleanliness of your home. The list could go on and on, but these are some of the major things you should be aware of. I will go into a few in more detail later on, but for the moment I just want you to take a look at your life from an objective viewpoint and try to see whether some of the above things might be holding you back. Perhaps your job is stressful and you don't enjoy it at all, or maybe you have the tendency to watch very violent movies and TV shows. Maybe you have friends or family that aren't very supportive of you, or maybe your home is a mess and just looking at it makes you feel bad. Whatever it is, it's important that you admit to yourself that some things need changing. Don't worry about changing anything right now. Simply being aware of the problem is enough. Awareness is the foundation of positive change. When you start being honest with yourself and begin to notice the areas of your life that are causing you negative emotions, your life will naturally begin to improve. Denial guarantees stagnation. Awareness guarantees growth.

When I began my personal journey of self-development, the first major thing that changed was my circle of friends. I stopped hanging out with a lot of the people I was once close with. It happened all by itself without me having to think too much about it. I was improving myself so quickly that old friends naturally got left behind. We just no longer had as much in common. I was focused on becoming successful and happy, while they were still doing the same things they had been doing for years. I understood that I could not afford to surround myself with people that didn't have similar goals. It was nothing against them, but I just knew the importance of putting myself in the best environment possible. They say you become like the 5 people you spend the most time with, and I have found that to be absolutely true.

I'm telling you this because from my experience, I've come to see that the number one thing that holds people back from achieving their goals and getting on the path to a better life is their circle of friends. The hard truth is that you will most likely have to cut some people out of your life if you want better things for yourself. You cannot afford to surround yourself with negative people if you want to live a positive life. If you are lucky, then you might have some very supportive and encouraging friends. Keep those people close, but consider eliminating or drastically reducing the amount of time you spend with the people who aren't happy or doing much with their lives. You will become like the people you spend time with. Their habits and tendencies will rub off on you very quickly. On my journey, I've spent a lot of time alone for this very reason. It's always a better idea to be alone than to be with negative people. And being alone gives you a great opportunity to learn how to love yourself more, which is crucial for living a happy and fulfilling life.

Everything from your external environment that you allow to enter your mind and body becomes part of your internal environment. Memories get stored, energy gets absorbed, and attitudes get engrained in your mind. Everything from your place of employment to the type of music you listen to has an impact on your thoughts and attitudes. Considering that your thoughts determine the quality of your life and your level of happiness, you would be wise to reevaluate your life and determine what is serving you and what is not. If something doesn't feel right or makes you feel bad, then it should be avoided. This process takes time and requires awareness, but it will have a major impact on your life.

Becoming aware of your external environment is important, but I believe that consciously shaping your life from the inside out is far more powerful. Since your thoughts have led to the decisions that got you to where you are today, focusing on improving your thoughts will ensure you end up in a better place than you are right now. People have the tendency to think that everything happens "out there," when in reality it all happens "in here." Change your thoughts, change your life. You will find that your external environment automatically changes as your internal environment changes. I have seen this to be true for myself, and I have studied countless other successful people who all say the same thing. Change starts from within. This doesn't mean to neglect making changes to your external environment. It means that the majority of your time spent improving yourself should be focused within. The next chapter will explain exactly how to mold your inner environment for maximum success and happiness.

Awareness: The Foundation of Positive Change

For someone who is depressed, introspection and self-analysis is a must. There is often the tendency to want to avoid problems and repress emotions out of a fear of coming face to face with them, but this must be avoided at all costs. You must be willing to face your inner demons to have any chance of ridding yourself of them. The more you avoid them, the deeper and deeper they go and the harder they become to eliminate.

Repressed emotions actually affect the body in very noticeable ways. They cause tension in the muscles, which can lead to chronic stress, high blood pressure, headaches, severe anxiety, and disease. It is crucial that you muster the courage to go within and face the underlying causes of your current condition. It can be scary, but it is absolutely necessary. It's not so bad when you realize that you are not your thoughts. You are just the temporary owner of thoughts, and that means you control your thoughts and not the other way around. Having negative thoughts does not mean you are a bad person. It only means that you have temporarily lost touch with who you really are. And who you really are is someone far greater than you currently believe. Underneath all those negative thoughts is a beautiful person with unlimited potential. You may not see it now, but I promise that you will once you overcome this and learn how to be happy again.

As I mentioned, when I was in the process of overcoming my severe depression years ago, I spent a lot of time alone. I'm an introvert by nature, so it was what I preferred. If you are an introvert, then you have a slight advantage. Although I believe introverts are more susceptible to depression, I think they are also more likely to overcome it. Overcoming depression requires a lot of introspection and self-analysis, which introverts do naturally, so they tend to work through their problems much quicker. Extroverted people tend to look "out there" for answers, not realizing that their problem lies within. Due to the nature of extroverted people, they may have more trouble solving inner conflicts. At the same time, they are really good at temporarily forgetting their problems due to their social and outgoing nature. Introverts will often sit around and stew in their negative emotions, leading them into a downward spiral. Both have their advantages and pitfalls, but the real message that I wish to convey by telling you this is the importance of facing your problems rather than avoiding them. And by that I mean looking within yourself. You may believe your problems lie out in the world somewhere, but you will never be able to create lasting change in your life unless you first change yourself from the inside. You may be able to temporarily patch up a broken relationship, but if you didn't do any of the necessary inner work, the same problems will eventually surface again. You may be able to get some happiness by changing jobs, but that happiness won't last if you didn't change your inner environment, that is your thoughts and your attitudes toward life. You can move to the most beautiful place in the world, but you still have to take your mind and body with you. If you don't learn to go within and change your thoughts, then nothing will change.

If you are reading this book, then you are already aware that something in your life needs to change. It's a good sign that you are reading this, because that means you have come to accept some responsibility for your current situation. Some people just have too much pride to admit that they need to change. Fortunately, that is not you. Now all you need to do is go a little deeper and try to uncover the root cause of your depression. You may already have a good idea, but it's important that you get as specific as possible, because that will allow you to re-contextualize things and see them in a more positive light. The next section will describe a simple process for you to uncover the hidden blocks that are preventing you from living the life you desire.

Introspection and Analysis

It's likely that you already have a general idea of what is causing your depression, or at least you think you do. In my case years ago, one might say that I became depressed because my girlfriend broke up with me, I was overweight, and was failing college. This is where people make a huge mistake. They blame external events, when really the cause of depression lies within. In my case, the actual cause of my depression was not those seemingly negative events and circumstances but rather my reaction and interpretation of them. Since I had very low self-esteem at the time and was not very mentally or emotionally strong, I was extremely prone to depression, anxiety, and other mental/emotional issues. Going out and getting another girlfriend was not going to solve anything. It might have temporarily boosted my self-esteem, but if my next girlfriend happened to break up with me, I would be a complete mess just like the first time. The only way for me to really solve anything was to go inside and determine the thoughts and attitudes that were controlling my reactions and interpretations of events and circumstances. Because I delved within, I was able to create permanent and lasting change rather than just a quick fix. The following describes the exact process that I used to uncover the hidden cause of my depression.

I knew that the problem was with my thoughts, so my main objective was to discover the specific thoughts that were the cause of my suffering. I knew that once I found them, I could begin to let them go and replace them with more positive thoughts that served me much better. Just by the way I felt, I could tell that my thoughts were of a very demeaning and self-critical nature. I did not respect myself and had very low self-esteem. I was lucky enough to know that the unfortunate circumstances of my life at the time were the result of my dominant thoughts and not the other way around, so I was determined to change myself from the inside out.

The way I began was with creative self-expression through poetry. Poetry allowed me to express my thoughts in a creative way that I could actually feel proud of. Even though my thoughts were mostly negative, I didn't feel so bad about them when I could express them as art. It was very healing for me to get my thoughts out onto paper. It was the only thing that made me genuinely happy at that point in my life. I strongly believe that every person who is going through a depression can benefit greatly from expressing themselves through writing. The process of writing itself is healing, but what makes writing extremely powerful is the fact that it creates awareness. Writing out your thoughts allows you to see them for what they really are-just thoughts. When those thoughts are out of your head, you suddenly no longer identify with them in the same way you once did. Instead of judging and condemning yourself for your awful thoughts, you realize that they are just words, and words can be changed.

I encourage you to begin a journaling practice immediately. Freehand write for at least 10 minutes per day without editing or censoring yourself. Write exactly what comes to mind. Spill your guts. No one is going to read it but you, so be completely honest with yourself and let all your deepest, darkest thoughts rise to the surface. From there, they can be released onto paper through the pen in your hand, and you will be freed of one burden at a time. I encourage everyone to write in a journal on a daily basis, but you especially need to if you are depressed or struggling with negative emotions. It's amazing to watch the transformation that takes place just from this one simple practice. Start today. If it helps, get a nice leather bound journal or something colorful that is pleasing for you to look at. Get excited about it! This is your life after all, and this is one step towards a brighter future.

Journaling itself is powerful, but I have a few tips that will help you to make it even more transformative. Once you have written your entry for the day, re-read what you have written and try to point out any negative thoughts you may have written down. Choose one and re-write it at the bottom of the page. Then, you are going to re-frame that statement to make it positive. This is how you will turn yourself from a pessimist to an optimist, a negative thinker to a positive one, and that will make ALL the difference in your life. For example, let's say you had a bad day and wrote, "Nothing went well for me today. I feel like everyone is against me and nothing ever works out how I want it to." Once you have written this at the bottom of the page, put a light X through it, and then below it write something like, "Today might have been a bad day, but I know that brighter days lie ahead. My future is bright and I won't let one bad day ruin my mood." Circle this statement. You have successful reframed a negative into a positive, and you are now one step closer to becoming the happy, upbeat, passionate person you desire to be.

You see, you always have the choice of how you want to look at things. A negative situation is only negative in the eyes of the person who chooses to see it that way. You can always choose to turn a negative into a positive. It takes practice, but it is well worth the initial effort, because positive thoughts bring positive results. Your happiness is directly correlated with the amount of positive thoughts that you think. To beat your depression fast and experience greater amounts of happiness, your main objective should always be to look at the things in your life in a more positive light. Truth is subjective. A tragedy to one can be a blessing to another. It's not about the situation itself but rather your perception of it.

How can we realistically deal with the seemingly 'negative' events that are an inevitable part of life? People die, relationships end, jobs get lost, cars break down, and a whole slew of other events that most people view as 'bad' or 'unfortunate.' I have a simple solution: always look for the lesson. All 'negative' events hold a hidden lesson and a buried treasure. Most people's immediate reaction to unfortunate events is to say, "Oh, how awful" or "What a tragedy." Most people automatically look for the problem rather than the solution. I'll tell you one thing: life is much more beautiful when you look for the good in all, and that is always nothing more than a matter of choice. You may be automatically conditioned to look for the tragedy rather than the lesson behind the tragedy, but that's quite normal and it's exactly why I have taught you this journaling exercise. Start reframing your own negative thoughts into positive thoughts, and your whole world will slowly start to brighten. When you make positive thinking a habit, life tends to start working out in your favor. Even when it doesn't, you will be looking for the beauty, and so you will find it.

When in the midst of a depression, it can be very difficult to find the lesson in it. You probably won't immediately see the incredible blessing that it is, but I encourage you to start looking for the positives. My own depression was my greatest blessing, because it caused me to focus on bettering myself. If it wasn't for my depression, I would probably still be living a mediocre life. I didn't see how my depression was a blessing until over a year after it ended, but today it is very clear to me. Tears of joy and gratitude often roll down my cheeks when I stop to think of all the struggles I've overcome. I promise you that you will look back on your current struggle and feel exactly the same. The lesson may be hidden at the moment, but your job is to uncover it and turn this struggle into a stepping stone for your great achievements to come.

In the early stages of introspection and self-analysis, a lot of negative thoughts and emotions will be coming to the surface. This may be uncomfortable, but it is absolutely necessary for your personal growth. Commit to writing in a journal on a daily basis, and you will see massive progress over time. Having the honesty to admit the presence of negative and harmful thoughts is a huge step in and of itself. You have transcended the stage of denial and victimhood and moved into courage and responsibility. At this stage, your recovery is essentially guaranteed. The speed at which you recover will depend on your ability to surrender your problems and choose a more positive focus. The whole process will be much easier if you can come to a level of understanding and acceptance. I will cover this in more detail in the following section.

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Politics fourth edition by Andrew Heywood

PREVIEW

Politics is exciting because people disagree. They disagree about how they should live. Who should get what? How should power and other resources be distributed? Should society be based on cooperation or conflict? And so on. They also disagree about how such matters should be resolved. How should collective decisions be made? Who should have a say? How much influence should each person have? And so forth. For Aristotle, this made politics the ‘master science’: that is, nothing less than the activity through which human beings attempt to improve their lives and create the Good Society. Politics is, above all, a social activity. It is always a dialogue, and never a monologue. Solitary individuals such as Robinson Crusoe may be able to develop a simple economy, produce art, and so on, but they cannot engage in politics. Politics emerges only with the arrival of a Man (or Woman) Friday. Nevertheless, the disagreement that lies at the heart of politics also extends to the nature of the subject and how it should be studied. People disagree about what it is that makes social interaction ‘political’, whether it is where it takes place (within government, the state or the public sphere generally), or the kind of activity it involves (peacefully resolving conflict or exercising control over less powerful groups). Disagreement about the nature of politics as an academic discipline means that it embraces a range of theoretical approaches and a variety of schools of analysis. Finally, globalizing tendencies have encouraged some to speculate that the disciplinary divide between politics and international relations has now become redundant.

DEFINING POLITICS

Politics, in its broadest sense, is the activity through which people make, preserve and amend the general rules under which they live. Although politics is also an academic subject (sometimes indicated by the use of ‘Politics’ with a capital P), it is then clearly the study of this activity. Politics is thus inextricably linked to the phenomena of conflict and cooperation. On the one hand, the existence of rival opinions, different wants, competing needs and opposing interests guarantees disagreement about the rules under which people live. On the other hand, people recognize that, in order to influence these rules or ensure that they are upheld, they must work with others – hence Hannah Arendt’s (see p. 7) definition of polit ical power as ‘acting in concert’. This is why the heart of politics is often portrayed as a process of conflict resolution, in which rival views or competing interests are reconciled with one another. However, politics in this broad sense is better thought of as a search for conflict resolution than as its achievement, as not all conflicts are, or can be, resolved. Nevertheless, the inescapable presence of diversity (we are not all alike) and scarcity (there is never enough to go around) ensures that politics is an inevitable feature of the human condition.

Any attempt to clarify the meaning of ‘politics’ must nevertheless address two major problems. The first is the mass of associations that the word has when used in everyday language; in other words, politics is a ‘loaded’ term. Whereas most people think of, say, economics, geography, history and biology simply as academic subjects, few people come to politics without preconceptions. Many, for instance, automatically assume that students and teachers of politics must in some way be biased, finding it difficult to believe that the subject can be approached in an impartial and dispassionate manner (see p. 19). To make matters worse, politics is usually thought of as a ‘dirty’ word: it conjures up images of trouble, disruption and even violence on the one hand, and deceit, manipulation and lies on the other. There is nothing new about such associations. As long ago as 1775, Samuel Johnson dismissed politics as ‘nothing more than a means of rising in the world’, while in the nineteenth century the US historian Henry Adams summed up politics as ‘the systematic organization of hatreds’.

The second and more intractable difficulty is that even respected authorities cannot agree what the subject is about. Politics is defined in such different ways: as the exercise of power, the science of government, the making of collective decisions, the allocation of scarce resources, the practice of deception and manipulation, and so on. The virtue of the definition advanced in this text – ‘the making, preserving and amending of general social rules’ – is that it is sufficiently broad to encompass most, if not all, of the competing definitions. However, problems arise when the definition is unpacked, or when the meaning is refined. For instance, does ‘politics’ refer to a particular way in which rules are made, preserved or amended (that is, peacefully, by debate), or to all such processes? Similarly, is politics practised in all social contexts and institutions, or only in certain ones (that is, government and public life)?

From this perspective, politics may be treated as an ‘essentially contested’ concept, in the sense that the term has a number of acceptable or legitimate meanings (concepts are discussed more fully later in the chapter). On the other hand, these different views may simply consist of contrasting conceptions of the same, if necessarily vague, concept. Whether we are dealing with rival concepts or alternative conceptions, it is helpful to distinguish between two broad approaches to defining politics (Hay, 2002; Leftwich, 2004). In the first, politics is associated with an arena or location, in which case behaviour becomes ‘political’ because of where it takes place. In the second, politics is viewed as a process or mechanism, in which case ‘political’ behaviour is behaviour that exhibits distinctive characteristics or qualities, and so can take place in any, and perhaps all, social contexts. Each of these broad approaches has spawned alternative definitions of politics, and, as discussed later in the chapter, helped to shape different schools of political analysis (see Figure 1.1). Indeed, the debate about ‘what is politics?’ is worth pursuing precisely because it exposes some of the deepest intellectual and ideological disagreement in the academic study of the subject.

The Man Who Wrecked A Country

It was the dismissal and flight abroad of Robert Mugabe’s oldest and trustiest lieutenant that finally led to his downfall. Grace Mugabe, the 93-year-old president’s avaricious wife, was thought to be behind the sacking. Younger than her husband by 41 years, she plainly sought to inherit the throne. Yet she overplayed her hand. Within a week the armed forces’ commander, alongside an array of generals, declared, without naming her, that Mrs Mugabe must be stopped. He demanded, also without naming names, that her nemesis, Emmerson Mnangagwa, must be reinstated as heir apparent. Mrs Mugabe’s allies were denounced as “counter-revolutionaries” who had played no part in the “war of liberation” that 37 years ago had brought Mr Mugabe (pictured) to power.

A few days later armoured troop carriers rolled into Harare, the capital. Soldiers took control of the state broadcaster and surrounded Mr Mugabe’s residence. In the small hours of the morning another general announced on television that the army was in charge. But the coup was not a coup, he insisted. Various traitors had merely been rounded up and the Mugabe family detained for their own safety. Mr Mnangagwa was set to return from his brief exile. The Mugabe era was at last ingloriously over. As The Economist went to press, events were still unfolding pell-mell. But the latest signals suggest that the fate of Zimbabwe, at least for now, is in the hands of the 75-year-old Mr Mnangagwa.

Known as “the Crocodile” for his habit of waiting quietly before sinking his jaws into his next victim, Mr Mnangagwa has none of his erstwhile master’s wit and charm. A former guerrilla and longtime political prisoner during the era of white supremacy that ended with independence under Mr Mugabe in 1980, for the next two decades he was minister of state security and of justice. He acquired a fearsome record of repression and an unrivalled knowledge of where the bodies—literal and metaphorical—were buried.

A pragmatist to the core, Mr Mnangagwa’s first act on the day he took over his department in 1980 was to visit the police station where he had been tortured by the white regime after his capture for trying to blow up a train. The leg-irons from which he had been hung upside down were still there, as were the white officers who had beaten him. Yet, according to an account by Martin Meredith, a historian, he promised them a “clean slate” in the new country.

Soon enough, however, he was making his own use of such men. He is accused of complicity in the brutal suppression of the minority Ndebele tribe in the early 1980s, when about 20,000 people, most of them civilians, were murdered by the Zimbabwean army. (He denies this.) He had a hand in the Zimbabwean army’s deployment in the 1990s to the Democratic Republic of Congo, which it plundered. In 2008, when Mr Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF party lost a parliamentary election and the first round of the presidential one, he orchestrated a lethal wave of violence that forced the winning challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai, to withdraw from the second round. Standing for election to a parliamentary seat against the main opposition party, he was himself twice embarrassingly defeated. But Mr Mugabe ensured he would always retain a senior government or party post.

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