Laziness can not be an excuse for depression. Get a life. During the course of my Dad’s cancer treatment I was heavily involved with Taekwondo and then Basketball. I kept myself busy during these years, and my parents always encouraged me to stay busy.
Over time I changed my priorities. I got sucked into Video Games and stopped my Taekwondo training. There were a number of factors that lead into this, but the central event going around that time was my Dad’s death. Eventually, my daily routine turned into school, homework and then video games/the internet until the next day. I didn’t have the fire in me to stay active and strong with sports.
Some people will look at this situation and say, “it’s okay you were coping with a difficult time in your life.” Sure.
That may be true. It’ll be different for everyone, some people will let their health deteriorate and blame it on their situation.
“Take some time off it’s okay.” No.
If you blame your behavior on external situations you won’t accomplish anything. You’ll sit there and tell yourself, “it’s okay I can start working on myself tomorrow…I need some time to recover…then I’ll get a life…”
Everyone else will be working towards their goals, spending their time trying to find out how to beat YOU…and you’re busy procrastinating you’re life away…
That following summer I started to take small steps to improve myself. I wanted to get back into sports, but my Taekwondo studio had closed down. It was not an option anymore. I tried a number of the different sports summer camps in my High School to see what I was good at, but my laziness got the best of me.
I would show up to Wrestling practice, find it to be too hard, and then go take a couple of days off for myself so I could “recover.”
My dad wasn’t there anymore to tell me to suck it up; instead of taking responsibility, I hid in the shadows. I tried out basketball to see how things would turn out, but again, the same thing happened. I was lost at what to do, and I couldn’t even last a week with the summer schedule because “I needed a break.”
Finally, I tried out Cross Country. I figured, if I couldn’t handle something as simple as running then maybe I should just not get back into sports altogether. I underestimated the sport and I couldn’t handle all of the tough workouts. I was out of shape, but I still showed up to run. After a couple of days of practice I went back to playing video games/doing nothing back home because I thought the hard work was difficult. I camouflaged what my real motive was: laziness, by saying that I was still sad about my Dad’s death. If you want to get a life you need to put in the hard work.
When school started up, I got my act back together; my Dad would probably look at me and ask when I would stop messing around and take myself seriously again…
I returned to Cross Country practice (it was the only sport going for me) and decided to stick with it. I was one of the slowest runners on the team (my summer was filled with making excuses instead of properly training) but I still stuck with it. I trained myself over the years, even during the hardest days when I would watch people show up- only to quit a couple of days later. That used to be me, and I didn’t want to go back to that way.
Getting active is the best way to beat your depression
Whatever sport it is, lifting, wrestling, football, running…you can’t use your depression as an excuse to stop trying.
My Dad would’ve looked at my behavior and ask, “what are you doing, get back to work” in confusion.
I realized this late in the midst of his death, but I want to warn you that when something brings your mood down…don’t turn it into an excuse to stop trying. If you sit in your house all day you’ll kill your motivational drive…of course you’ll start to feel like you have no purpose. You’ll tell yourself that you want to change…some people will try to take short cuts and figure out how to get a life without putting any effort in.
Do you feel depressed after accomplishing something, or seeing yourself break past limits?
Duh…you won’t go anywhere or change if you sit in a house all day…
Just go out there and do something sheesh. It’s no wonder you’re busy making excuses for why you can’t do anything to help yourself. When you’re not active, you have all of the time in the world to make up imaginary judgements or reasons for why you shouldn’t work hard that day. When you stay active, you won’t have time to label yourself a loser. You’ll take that step forward and get a life.
J