I’m sad pretty much all of the time. Even though my articles seem positive, and they do reflect my own desire to be more positive, sadness tends to be my number one emotion in any given day. If you’re reading this, that’s probably the case for you too. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think the reasons as to why we should try to fight it are obvious. In my own struggles I have found that the thing that makes me able to carry on through the storm has always been my constant content generation. While this might not be the key for you, I think its certainly worth a shot and it could very well help you out of the pit.
6. It Restructures Your Day
This is a key aspect to fighting depression – having structure in your day and having something you work for every day. I find that at the end of the day being able to say “I did this thing” is absolutely crucial. If you have a pre-determined thing to do every day then you know that you are going to be able to build onto something that previously existed. As you go about your day you know that you have one explicit thing you have to do and this helps to give you something to concentrate your day around. Being able to concentrate around something like that is crucial to defeating depression.
5. It Makes You An Interesting Person
This is one of those things that doesn’t really make sense until you are living it, but think about it, most of the most interesting people from history were those who were doing stuff every day and creating a body of work. If you’re doing something similar then you are by default going to become more interesting. The act of creating content often requires research and introspection. This is important because it can help establish a sense of self and help you understand why you are valuable. Once you start getting into the hundreds or even thousands of pieces of content it’s incredibly rewarding to go back and look at all the people you’ve met and things you’ve learned from your work.
4. It Gives You Purpose
This is perhaps the most obvious one on this list but it’s crucial. When you’re depressed it’s easy to not want to get out of bed in the morning, but if you know that you’ve got to create content then you have a reason to move. Even if your content is just three hundred words a day there is suddenly a motivation to get your day going and start exploring yourself. With depression we often ask if anything matters, in this case the content matters because it is giving us a reason to keep going and build towards something. Hell, even if you aren’t building towards something it’s good to be creating content because again, it provides momentum to your day – which makes sense because…
3. Suddenly There Is A Goal
When I was at my most depressed moments I felt like I had no goal in life. Yet as I started to produce massive amounts of content I felt vindicated because suddenly there was a goal. I wanted to write better content which I hoped would consequently get on bigger and bigger sites and get my work in front of more people. It wasn’t a grandiose scheme – it was just something I had to make me not kill myself. Did I envision making money off of it? Not really. Did I envision it taking over my life like it has? Never. It simply gave me something to do and gave me drive in a time in my life when I had no friends and few real hobbies. If you have a goal in your life then you already know where you’re going – and as long as you keep moving forward it’s hard for the depression to take over.
2. It Can Spark A Passion
When I started writing about heavy metal when I was fourteen I just thought it would be a fun thing to do with my buddy Dan, I didn’t think that I would become a professional writer and band manager. Yet here I am. Producing content became my passion and then it became my life, and it can be the same way for you too. It’s not an easy thing to do at first and it can require a lot of work and dedication but it allows you to discover new things about yourself, and let me guarantee you, when you have a passion giving your whole life direction it’s hard to wallow in depression. Now, I definitely still have days where I feel sad and need affection and wish my roommate would let us get a cat (Fucking Chad) but I think that ever since I allowed content creation to dictate my life I have been a much happier person.
1. It Can Lead To So Much More
Like I mentioned in the last post – creating content is just the beginning. It can build towards a career. For some of the sites that I write for, this one included, when people see that you’re a regular contributor they start to get a sense that you’re the real deal and turn around and offer you work. Creating content you’re passionate about not only gets you doing exciting stuff it also gets other people excited about what you’re doing. You’re allowing yourself to be a part of a better tomorrow and prove that you are your own master and capable of bringing your work and that of those around you to a new level. More importantly you are contributing to the human story and rising above the forces of depression to become your very own force to be reckoned with.
Featured photo credit: Jan Tik via flickr.com
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