How Is Everyone Not Depressed? Life Is So Freaking Mundane!

How I fight back against (near) depression and lead a happier life.

Have you ever lie down at the end of the day, finally able to take a break from a hectic day but feel like you have done nothing meaningful despite keeping yourself busy? You are not the first one nor the last one to feel so. It won’t be the last time you feel this as well. But you could definitely work on improving this aspect of your life.

With the ongoing pandemic and movement limited in many parts of the world, mental health has been pushed to the forefront. A study by kff.org shows that about 4 in 10 adults in the U.S. have reported anxiety or depressive disorder symptoms, up from 1 in 10 in 2019. Similar studies across the world have similar findings. Governments that typically do not rate mental health as part of their health program started to take it seriously.

It is hard to maintain a healthy mental state in normal times, let alone in this difficult time. It is easy to get yourself lost, toiling, and struggling hard on seemingly days that are no different than any other day. Routines do not necessarily mean bad. Having said that, this habitual behavior, by nature, can cut us off from feeling. Moving through the same motion day in day out can set us on autopilot, essentially leading us to lose touch with ourselves, numbing our sensory or emotional experience.

The Lockdown

Since March 2020, I have been working from home. With the current unpredictable situation with the pandemic and multiple levels of movement control implemented every so often, I have essentially put myself into lockdown as well. While there are perks of working from home, foregoing the commute, avoiding the peak hours traffic, and saving time and money (lunches in the city center are understandably more expensive), the grass is not always greener on the other side. I do miss the lunches and the short chats across the walkway with my colleagues. The commute was also important, in hindsight, to let the mind segregate the time between working and family.

Since the introduction of working from home, I am basically enclosed within my 1140 square feet home walls for at least 90% of the time. Days and nights may be easy to differentiate but working hours and personal time have intertwined. Without commute and a change of scenario, my body and mind struggled to put a line between both. I constantly found myself thinking about work during my personal time, and vice versa.

What makes things worse is that weekends offer no respite. Apart from the market and groceries run, it does not feel any different from Mondays to Sundays. It does not help to have two young kids as well, what with the e-learning classes and the constant bickering between both, I do not feel rested at all during this period of time.

The Realization

You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge

— Phil McGraw

It is a struggle to cope with the new norm. It took me a while. Months actually. Finally, the realization comes to me. In recent years, I pride myself in embracing changes. As the old saying goes, change is the only constant in the world. It dawns on me that I was feeling unenergetic due to the never-changing landscape of my days.

Routine has become an adversary instead of a companion. Instead of allowing me to be efficient in my daily life by doing the same set of routines over and over again, it has taken a toll on the health of my mind. I have become disinterested and easily distracted in my daily life. It feels like I am just toiling mindlessly day in day out.

I am a person that craves meaning and purpose in life. I yearn for meaningful action that impacts the lives of my family, myself, and the community. This state of unchanged circumstances is killing me slowly from within.

That moment of revelation shook me out of my trance. It is the first step of me taking back control of how I direct my life back on track.

Finding New Interest

If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it is lethal.

— Paulo Coelho

Once I have acknowledged the situation, the next step is naturally to find ways to break the routine.

I am a believer of small things matter. I don’t believe in drastic changes or improvements. I have a view that such rushed changes do not last long. It feels like the changes are coerced to existence. To make the changes become lifelong habits, they must be introduced and nurtured naturally without hurry. These must also be in line with your belief and way of living.

I started things simple.

I construct in my mind, a map of what interests me, what I always wanted to explore but have never done so for various reasons. These must also be easily achievable, either by the ease of setup or ease to get knowledge on or just it could be just expanding my existing interest. These must also be easily ditched and no major investment of energy and money should be involved. As nutty as it sounds, without this extra baggage, it will be easier to proceed to explore the new, knowing that if anything, you could get rid of it as easily. After all, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Culinary

Food has always been our culture. I have always enjoyed cooking. With two young daughters, it is extremely satisfying to see your kids enjoy your cooking, with the safe knowledge that you are providing them meals as healthy as they could be.

Sad to say that in the midst of the busyness of life, I have lost a fair share of interest in it, mainly due to the repetitive menu. What it needs to take off again is just a little bit of twist. I realize the need to start exploring new menus to keep things interesting. I began to scour the Internet for recipes. Cooking like life itself, need not be boring. We are the ones that make it and limit it so.

I have since added pancakes, waffles, cakes, and others into my repertoire. Granted, not all of them turn out to be a success. But all of them are worthy experiments, if only just to see the funny faces during the tasting.

Gardening

I am no Superman but I have always wanted to save the world, of some sort. Although it will be hard for me to go for zero waste nor do I have the intention to do so, I am a big proponent of going green. I tried to contribute to Mother Nature as much as I could, mainly by practicing the three Rs whenever the situation allows, recycle, reuse and reduce. Thus, I began to explore gardening. Staying in an apartment does not stop me from trying it out on the balcony. I figure that if every home does its fair share of planting, it will do the world wonders.

I started with mother in law’s tongue plant, which is believed to absorbs pollutants and releases oxygen at night. I gradually move plants that yield produce for my cooking. Cherry tomatoes, leaf celery, and lettuce are added to my plot. This would be used for my cooking.

You see, I started to combine my various interests and come out with new ones that are all correlated and support each other.

Although the yield is currently nothing to shout about, it has been inspirational and fulfilling to be able to wake up in the morning and tend to my plants. In fact, watering and watching my plants grow is something that I look forward to every morning. Something is soothing about this act.

An unexpected gem

The movement control has also forced us to cut our own hair as the hair salons are closed too. We bought a hair trimmer and I asked my wife to help me with the haircut. Surprisingly, it turns out to be a therapeutic session for us. We realized that it has been a long time since we actually talk meaningfully to each other. Just us both alone. Talking. Between work and the kids, all in the confine of the house, there is really not a lot of time for us both alone. Apart from that, there is a lot of laughter and giggles as we both experience something new (and adventurous!) together. You may ask if this is even a new interest? It may be not. But it is a new experience nonetheless and we are better off with it, so much so that I can say that I would prefer to continue doing this in the future despite the lifting of the movement control.

It is not just about finding a new interest that may last you a lifetime. It is as much about getting a new experience or sensation and repeatedly experience this throughout your life that matters, even when you have reached your retirement age and beyond. That is how you would feel pretty much alive!

I could go on and on about all the other tiny little interests that I have discovered or rediscovered to make my life interesting again, from starting to write in Medium, re-establish my interest in reading, retaking Body Combat fitness class via Youtube to immersing myself to an array of new investments. The key here for all of us is that we can choose how we live our lives, and it need not be mundane!

Changing Perspective

Look for magic in the daily routine

— Lou Barlow

I have spent more than my fair share of time on Netflix. When you are stuck at home, that seems like a logical form of entertainment. So much so that I ran out of movies and TV series to watch. I resorted to watching reality shows. In the beginning, it is just another way for me to fill my time, especially during dishwashing. I have watched various shows. I must say, some actually exceed my expectation and piqued my interest. It is amazing that the film industry is able to make interesting documentaries from everyday life like a trucker in Outback Truckers or a logger in Big Timber, who seemingly never run out of trouble to the amusement of viewers. I do enjoy watching these shows and the daily challenge that they face.

It then dawns on me.

Recent studies show that Americans spend a third of their free time watching television and of that two-thirds are reality shows. If the general public takes an interest in the daily life of someone halfway across the globe, with a seemingly unremarkable job, we too can make our daily life interesting. As much as like the show producer, it is our job to make our own life interesting. It is our duty to put our daily chores under the microscope and take a different light and approach to it. Everyday life could be fascinating. Tiny details in life could be engrossing. It is just a matter of perspective. It is just a matter of us taking pride in what we do, and to change them as we see fit.

It would have been easy for me to miss this point if I have not changed my perspective and started to believe that I can learn something from everything. It could have been easy for me to continue to binge-watch series on Netflix without much thought and thus make improvements to life.

This is a testament that perspective is important. Your mind can do wonders. Only if you let it. Start from there.