This article is all about beating depression. I am a person who suffered from long bouts of depression, however after deciding to change my whole outlook on life, I now have a much happier, successful and stress-free life. I will explain how I went about achieving this new life.

As I grew older and especially when I was in my early twenties, I used to always compare my life with other people I knew, for example my friends. It seemed to me that my life was so much more of a struggle than what their's was and that most of these people had so much more going for them and so much more to look forward to than I did.

I was not happy at the hand of cards I had been dealt and would regularly be down in the dumps, feeling sorry for myself. I had a number of issues in my life which had a major impact on my self-confidence and self-esteem, which would also lead me into depression. This issues including a weight problem, a stutter, a bald patch on my head and I am quite short in height compared to the average man.

I was in a regular state of depression and found it very difficult to pull my self out of it. The stress for example of socialising when you have a stutter and trying to gain employment would take a lot out of me. My hair started to turn grey when I was only twenty-one years of age.

I was not content at always being depressed and at the age of twenty-two, I decided to attempt to change my whole life. I had to have a whole new approach and a totally different thought process, in a nutshell I needed to chill out, think in a far more positive way and learn how to de-stress.

This was not going to be easy however it was essential to do. I started to read many self-help type books and books about eradicating depression. I learnt many things such as worrying about a situation makes it even harder, not easier and that in life all you can do is to try your best, therefore whatever the outcome you can feel proud that you gave it your best shot. It is also important to remember that we only live once and that that life could come to an end tomorrow, therefore we should treat every day as if it is the last and to enjoy ourselves.

The main change I made was that I started to think and compare my life to people I was reading about in the newspapers or watching on the television instead of comparing my life to my friends for example. From learning about countries in the third world and reading about certain disasters and terrorist acts, I realised what a fool I had been and that I was actually one of the lucky ones. If and when I start feeling down or depressed, I quickly switch on the news and it soon shakes me out of that temporary depressive state.