Hey buddy! I won't make any claims against other's opinions here. We all chose what we chose for ourselves. Depression is the indirect result of cognitive diss

Hey buddy! I won't make any claims against other's opinions here. We all chose what we chose for ourselves. Depression is the indirect result of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is the result of holding conflicting beliefs and feelings inside yourself. That could be "I'm suppose to finish college" and "I want to go live in Thailand and code for a year", for example. When you hold two opposing beliefs, your brain attempts to resolve those beliefs through a series of rationalizations of your feelings. Rationalizations are excuses, but just sound better, as they are intended to resolve the dissonance so you can function somewhat normally emotionally. The more you attempt to avoid resolving these beliefs, the stronger your dissonance will be. All of this results in suffering. A little suffering now, resolving things and stating your real feelings, can help alleviate the symptoms of dissonance and the larger suffering you are experiencing today. Accepting a little ongoing suffering will eventually resolve the dissonance, but a choice will have to be made. BTW, a lot of people are challenged with undestanding how they actually feel emotionally. Celebrate the fact you already know you are sad. It's a helluva thing to be able to do that! Buddhism, or more specifically the 8-fold path, is essentially a mind recipe for what I describe above. It goes something like this (with my spin on each step after the colons): 1. Right view: understand the problem behind a given dissonance you hold (you may have multiple ones) 2. Right intention: set intent to resolve one of the dissonances 3. Right speech: talk about resolving it to others and don't represent actions or thoughts that attempt to keep the dissonance in place 4. Right action: put the thing you are saying into action. don't just talk about it. do it. 5. Right livelihood: don't let the important parts of your life keep your dissonance in place. jobs and school are livelihoods 6. Right effort: keep plugging at the different dissonance bits you hold inside of you. never stop resolving them. 7. Right mindfulness: learn to meditate, basically. there are a thousand ways to meditate. find one that works for you. 8. Right concentration: don't let your brain fuck with you. you, your consciousness, is in control, not your brain. show it who's boss. Good luck dude. I have faith you'll be just fine. You are here, after all. That's the first step.