People who are depressed often have very high expectations.
For example, when they have a baby everything will be amazing. However things are difficult and there are challenges, then they get depressed because everything is not amazing.
Maybe the person was brought up in a way where they given the expectations that everything in life will be amazing.
For example, the kids who grew up when their parents were massive celebrities thought life should be like that. The pop star who was massively famous and then like most fame it goes down, cannot cope with the loss.
You shouldn’t expect life to be awful and you shouldn’t expect everything to be terrible. That’s what the middle path is about, you go to middle way.
However having things for your own pleasure comes to an end and that is sadness. So it’s best just to have what you need and not just focus on what you want.
If you get things that you want or pleasure things that’s fine, but don’t be attached to them and you do that by just going after what you need.
If you’re a person who is always after massive happiness and excitement, like a roller coaster the lows will be lower as the highs are higher.
You should expect things to be impermanent because that’s what they are.
You get old and then you die. If you don’t expect any more than that then you should be fine.
People who don’t have much a happy because they don’t expect more.
If you get more then don’t get overly attached to it because it’s impermanent. Just have what you need and you have it for serving others.
A bit like eating food gives you energy which you use to serve others.
Contentment
The highest highs, although they are glorious, don’t sustain themselves.
By comparison you drop to the lowest lows.
But by comparison, when you travel the even line down the middle of contentment, it rarely fails you.
High expectations
When people think that something they’re going to get will be amazingly fantastic and solve all their problems, they can only get depressed when they get it.
For example if people think having a baby or being famous will solve all their problems.
Whatever you have, you as a person are still there.
So you need to sort out how you are as a person, such as being balanced, not having too much attachment and so on.
Thinking of the past
Thinking of the past can be useful because it is an opportunity to analyse and go over previous issues and learn from them. Especially things in your childhood or formative years.
However be careful because doing so can make you sad and depressed because they’re all things that have gone.
That time has gone, those events have gone and probably those things have gone as well
Lifetime Wisdom 