Depression caused by The Dizziness of Success

by Haridas Chaudhuri

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There are some people who go into depression at the height of their toweing success and glory. It is common experience that such people appear incapable of enduring happiness. Let us take the case of a young man who, by dint of his hard labor and perseverance, was steadily rising to eminence in his career. The time came when his efficiency was recognized by higher authorities. He was given a big promotion with an enormous increase in salary. He was placed in charge of a separate establishment. For some time everything went fine. But suddenly one day something seemed to break. He lost his pep. Life began to lok dark, very dark, without meaning or color. Poeple around him seemed to form a dark conspiracy against him. The suggestion of poisoning seemed to be in the air at the places where he ate and drank. He felt like killing himself, like jumping in front of a train.

Several causes may combine to create a condition of this kind. Some people work hard and well so long as they can take orders from some superior authority. But they instinctively recoil from a situation where they have to assume responsibility and make decisions of their own. Pitchforked to a postiion of independent authority, they get dizzy and tormented with imaginary fears. Unfortunate childhood experiences undermine their self-confidence in situations of unrestricted freedom. It is submission to authority which is associated in their minds with goodness and virtue.

Some people cannot endure happiness and prosperity because deeply ingrained in their mind is the notion of crime. Virtue is unconscious associated in their minds with hard struggle and suffering. Happiness is felt as the negation of virtue. Inner guilt feelings may also prompt one to think that one does not deserve happiness. To others, it is personal ambition which is a sin, so that the situation of success, glory, and social recognition is inwardly felt as some sort of devil's trap. Such notions are evidently the result of faulty ethics and religious teachings. As we become aware of them, many hidden causes of depression are removed. Life is compounded of success and failure, of unfavorable and favorable circumstances, of adversity and prosperity, opposition and recognition, frustration and fulfillment. It is important

to be able to accept failure and frustration constructively, without losing heart. It is also important to be able to accept success and glory with thankfulness and joy without going overboard. It is needful to maintain, in all circumstances, favorable or unfavorable, the attitude of constructive living, in a spirit of dedication to life's higher values.

- excerpt from
Mastering the Problems of Living
by Haridas Chaudhuri

So then, OK, how does one maintain this "attitude of constructive living"?
Well, some folks say it is through deliberate practices of being able to stay centered and still in the midst of life's struggles . . .

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