My dad oftne says, "to live like this, it's better not to die".

...Not sure the translation quite works though.

I've found a major catalyst for depression is disappointment.

This going to sound completely backwards to that which was previously considered orthodox but if we get too passionately or emotionally involved with affairs in our daily lives we forget how fragile everything is crushing us more than we should be crushed when entropy rares its inevitable head.

Like not attempting to balance a Ming Dynasty vase on a thin pole, I've had to learn how not to set my heart on anything. A large number of people out there are broken and not through any fault of their own. They were born to broken parents, living in broken areas and all of that breakage catalyst of human's inexperience so many centuries ago.

On a positive note I do see an eventual turn around now given our better wisdoms, after all of these centuries, but I don't believe that renaissance will begin showing through until this current one has faded away and the previous one completely forgotten; mostly likely several generations from now.

After a lot of bad things happening in the last 10-15 years, I took the "don't get your hopes up" approach as well but, sadly enough, this approach also kills part of the enjoyment you'll get out of anything. Enthusiasm does more than just prepare you for a disappointment. It affects your mood and these things can snowball.

For example, if you know you're going to get to play a sweet game in a few days, your mood will be positive leading to other positive things. I think the trick is learning to deal with disappointment and accepting that things happen instead of not hoping at all. Learning to deal with this takes time and wisdom and some scars but it's better than never hoping just so you'd never get disappointed.

On the other hand, I think it's a smart move to remove as much negativity from your life:

- don't watch the news or follow media - they're worthless and only serve to create stress and inflate problems
- don't play competitive multiplayer games with immature communities
- don't work in a negative environment. I used to do this and got depressed a lot - my new job made me a whole different person.

Also, a trick I use, whenever I get frustrated or annoyed, I put things in perspective. I often get annoyed in traffic - from selfish jerks who cut you off for example and I put some mellow music in my car - Enya currently. It removes the urge to drive faster and calms me down and when another driver pisses me off, it makes it easier to ignore them. At work as well - if I'm stressed, I play calm music and it works.

Glad to hear you're getting reconnected with your dad.

Yeah...this is a good thing.

For me, it's about the process of forgiveness and acceptance. Frankly people are going to disappoint you. Life is going to throw unhappy events at you too. So if you can find a balance of enthusiasm, anticipation and joy sprinkled with a healthy dose of skepticism, protection of your heart and acceptance that not everything works out, life becomes a bit less of an emotional roller-coaster.

That learning process began with forgiving parental units first and foremost - I think most of us carry around events from our childhood that have shaped and affected our entire being/life/choices/relationships so to start repairing those things tends to have an effect globally...

So many lovely replies, thank you all :)

Rather than reply individually as I'd like to, I realise that by doing so I'd spend too much time to respond verbosely as I am prone to. Seriously thank you all! I'm touched to see my post receive such heartfelt responses :) Many responses reiterate much of what life has taught and is trying to teach me and that is part of the reason I write the way I do - generally raw, from the heart and quite openly.

I have found this method of sharing stories tends to elicit similar responses, but I am used to sharing such stories face to face or with people I have come to know well. GOG(see Stooner, I didn't type "GoG" for once! lol) has a wonderful community and after a bit of an absence from the site, the feeling upon return had seemingly changed. Down-repping, bickering, greed, etc seemed a lot more rampant. I felt like saying "fuck it" to these forums as I thought they had changed too much for my liking. I have found that in any relationship, be it with an individual or a community, that it is multifaceted, and that one's mood and mind-set of interactions have a lot to account for one's perception of that relationship.

So with that said, it is nice to be back and to be reminded of the "good" that is here, other than Good Old Games :)

Quite a few things made me smile today, and this thread was one of them. I am currently house-sitting a friend's house and looking after his animals whilst he is gallivanting around the world for 6 weeks. Lacking internet at the house, I was pleasantly surprised when I called MunkiSiren before coming home and she told me about how much of a response this thread had gotten, and that there were some lovely replies. Each time I reply to this thread, I am going to write a little about what reminded me to smile. It really is the little things in life, the small moments, that often bring a smile to my face :)

Behemoth brought me in a gift a couple of hours ago in the form of a dead rat. It might not seem like much, but to him(as I have experienced with other cats) it was a wonderful gift. Some feline psychologists say that such a gift is actually an insult to my hunting abilities but I prefer to interpret it otherwise :P

In the spirit of putting smiles on people's faces, I'd like to offer a few gifts back. If you have replied to this thread already or PMd me regarding it, and are interested in any of the following, please respond in the thread or message me if you'd prefer your request to be private. The gifts will be given on what feels right, rather than any prior connection I might have with whoever is asking.

The gifts currently on offer are:

GOG - Age of Wonders, Eador: Genesis and King of Dragon Pass
Steam - Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten and Sleeping Dogs

"Hakuna matata" was how my father ended his first letter to me, and I had to ask MunkiSiren what he meant as it has been MANY years since I have watched The Lion King. "Don't worry" indeed has been some sound advice for me :)

That is very kind of you. I've been showered with too much kindness this past week already, but thanks and +1 for your generosity. This thread has been a great read. Especially given some of the issues you mentioned that the forum has been experiencing of late, seeing posts/threads like this one is a real treat.

Don't believe a word of that. Once you've had a couple cats, you become an expert at hunting all the toys that they tend to bat around and that eventually - and inevitably - wind up under the furniture.

What i have noticed in life is that the more you look forward to something, the bigger and brighter the bulls-eye you paint to force something bad to have to happen to stop it. But i do try to put a positive spin on it, with my wife, i will joke and say "oh, that's a good one, very clever plan/sequence of events developed just right to stop us" and we both laugh about it.

Or i can make a sarcastic jokes about how bad luck works, here are my top 10;

1) Where you need wind, i will go fishing there.

2) Where you need rain, i will build there.

3) Where you need cyclones and or floods, i will go camping there.

4) If you suddenly feel the urge to crowd into a petrol station with lots of other people, i will be along shortly needing petrol.

5) If you suddenly find yourself forced to buy out all of a particular product along with many other bewildered people, i will have needed it badly and will be along shortly to try to buy it and be disappointed.

6) If me or my wife suddenly have a craving for a certain food, that is how we know a vital ingredient has run out!

7) If you need a pen that doesn't work in a hurry, ask me to take it out of the jar that has 99 working pens and only 1 that doesn't. Don't worry, there is no chance i will accidentally pick a working pen.

8) one day when scientists open a doorway to a new dimension, millions of odd socks will come tumbling out!

9) If you wish to count random cars driving past but the street is quiet, ask me to try to reverse out of a nearby driveway

10) When you buy a new car, dent the fender with a hammer, it will reduce bad luck's interest in finding a way to damage your car which most likely would have been far worse.

That's a great attitude :) I'm not consistent with it (yet) but I do something similar on occasion and like to say "Wakan Tanka I see what you did there, very funny!" I do see a lot of what I interpret as cosmic jokes in life and it makes it much more enjoyable that feeling negative about a situation beyond one's control, where things "just go wrong" so to speak.

It's definitely easier said than done, but my dad said it to me so often that I always kept it at the back of my mind. Over the years I practiced, so to speak, and I have gotten better at just letting the little things go.

Yeah it definitely takes a conscious effort but gets easier with practice :)

Me, i've reconnected with my father just last year, after 25 years of not speaking at all. We still have strange moments and "why the frag did we stay mad at each other so much time". We still gnarl to each other from time to time and then we recall that we missed a lot with that attitude. So i listen to his stories of what he was doing all that time ( which are interesting, i might say ) and he listens to my stories. We get to know each other again and we've decided not to let the little things to spoil this second chance.

My happiest moments are linked of my pets, all deceased, one poisoned by a "benevolent" neighbor that could not stand cats ( she was called Mitsumi and she could do anything she wanted with my two dogs ) and two dogs: an irish setter that died of old age and a stray, furry dog that was also poisoned by another "benevolent" person. Both dogs were females, the setter was named Leia and the stray dog was called Mona. The setter was playful and nice, while the stray dog was taking seriously her role as a guard dog. No one could enter past the little her. I miss them a lot...

sometimes i wonder if i have a bit too much of an understanding of the 'negative' as well? One time my friend was saving up to buy a computer, i asked him how much he had saved and he said $4000 dollars. I said oh wow, that's plenty, but he said he wanted to save up even more money. Then i said he should not do that because it is tempting fate, it will force the engine in your car will blow up so the money can be taken away. Believe it or not, the very next day the engine in his car blew up and he was on the phone shouting at me how did i know and all that!!! Also i have to wonder if i did actually jinx him??

I have never told this to anyone before.... One thing that happened which really spooked me..... i was watching a news report on TV one time about some terrible stuff that happened to some family, and as i observed the sequence of events it suddenly flashed in the back of my mind "those people are Christian", then when the interview came up they were Christian!! I nearly fell out of my chair.... i mean, i am also Christian myself, but i could not tell you what that is all about? Any Christian on here have any idea?