In my job, I am becoming increasingly aware of how depressed everyone is. Not every day in the people that I meet, although a good portion of the people I know do have depression. But depression in the people of England as a whole.
I don't want to write down the name of the inquiry I work for here, in case someone up and finds it and leaves me feeling slightly foolish. But it's basically an inquiry into what effects the wellbeing of children and young people in England today, and what steps we can go towards making it better.
Okay, of course this is a mammoth task. But the one thing that strikes me is how Hapinness and Love come up an awful lot. Children need Love. Children need happiness. Well, don't we all? And when we're talking about happiness, we're not talking about a feeling of glee or 'happiness' that you have when you buy something, or when you eat something. Happiness is indeed something that needs to be looked at on a deeper level - What is it and why is it that happiness is lacking almost everywhere?
I myself am quite a happy person (I think?). I don't like to be negative for very long. There was a period of over a year that made me extremely unhappy, but that had grown from my circumstances and my hatred for my own circumstances. I took control over them and I changed them, and since I have experienced happiness again. Not many depressed people can do that. Mine was born completely out of circumstances. I don't have a chemical imbalance, but I do know several people that do, and it effects their lives every single day.
There are certain things that bring satisfaction and happiness to people's lives - are these things lacking (for the most part) in people's lives? I don't get it. Was depression around long ago, and we just didn't have a name for it? There was no 'cure'? Is depression a new thing? I don't mean to be talking just about depression, but it confuses me.
Is this the curse of modern life? What is 'missing'? Is anything missing at all? Do we no longer know how to seek out happiness in our lives? Was this chemical imbalance around in history? Has it creeped in through the development of modern life, sparking something that was already there?
I suppose I will never know.
