Obviously, you’re not depressed. You’re too smart for that. Depression is for midwits, it’s a loser’s problem. What you are is lazy and unproductive. You take personal responsibility and you can change at any moment. You’re just slacking right now.

Despite not being depressed, you lack interest in any activities. You write extensive to-do lists at night, but during the day nothing feels worth doing. Did you really have to send that email? Submit that report? Pick up those groceries? It can wait. 


One day, all of a sudden, you feel worse. Maybe it’s that you’ve only eaten refined carbs for the past five days. Or that your last good workout was nine days ago. Or that you stopped leaving the house. 


Now you’re at a turning point. You can find the motivation to do one good thing: Go for a run, or a long walk, or a coffee date. Or you can keep doing what you’re doing. Look at Twitter, watch porn, make another to-do list. The chances you make the right choice are 50/50. 

The reason your odds of making the right choice are so low is because you don’t understand how to feel good. If you did, you’d make the right choice every time. Or at least you’d know when you’re choosing not to. 

Why does it matter if you feel good? Because when you feel good, everything else matters. You might rephrase “feeling good” as having the will to live. Life force. Drive. Without it, everything else that “matters” to you— your friends, dating, your goals— doesn’t matter enough for you to make time for it in the day.

When you are making a choice as to how to feel good, as a not-depressed person, you will usually opt for something easy with an immediate dopamine hit. That’s your Twitter, YouTube, porn. It takes a great deal of will to choose something else, and you don’t meaningfully understand the difference between your options. To you, nothing matters, so whether you take a walk or watch a video is inconsequential. 

What you need to do is learn how to feel good and then remember how to maintain it. You don’t need to maintain it all the time; just know how to do it. Generally, this means exercise, social connection, and eating well. If you’re facing unresolved emotional problems, which you probably are, this also means journaling, meditation, prayer, therapy, or whatever else will help you work through it. 

I will shift to the first-person now. I notice that when I feel good, things are easy. I get up early and feel well-rested. I make plans with friends because I want to. I get work done. I have the motivation to do the things I always “want” to do.

For me, it takes the following measures to feel good:

When I am (not) depressed, none of these things feel worth doing. But ironically, the reason nothing feels worth doing is because I let one (or likely several) of these things slip. I stopped feeling good, and I lost the will to do anything save for seeking immediate dopamine hits. It’s an incredibly hard cycle to break, especially if you don’t understand how you got into the cycle or how to get out of it.

As a not-depressed person, you owe it to yourself to find out how to feel good and try your best to stay there. It still always feels pointless to me to go for a run, even though I finish each run feeling better than I have the whole day, and that feeling propels me toward doing more worthwhile things. Likewise, it always feels pointless to see a friend. Every time I do I feel lifted and loved and like life is fun, but I don't remember for next time.  Maybe this is what it means to be depressed. 


So, this is my advice, from one maybe-depressed person to another: Do the things that will make you feel good— in a real, lasting way— even when they feel pointless. Know that you have to keep doing them. (A good workout or nourishing friend hang may buy you a few days, but no more.) Try to remember that all of your drive, your will to live, begins here. Without this, all of your nighttime to-do lists are pointless. With this, you won’t even need to make them. 