Depressive Realism

Depression Realism - Self delusion

I made a lot of important decisions in my life when the situations were most demanding. There was little time to indulge in research. I had to make assumptions and submit entirely to Almighty and make the decision. And surprisingly, those decisions have had a life changing effect, for the better. Dealing with a break up and taking exams at the same time, going through times when nobody seems to understand or give me any moral support. Decisions that I made during these times were made under so much depression and the state of mind I can't imagine at the moment or going through them again. I made the choice of attending university, the choice of getting married, the choice of being a mother. As I look back, I realize that I had little or nothing to work with to make those decisions at those times.

Recently, I stumbled upon an psychology related article that talks about Depressive Realism. Depressive Realism holds that people with the most accurate view of the world are the clinically depressed. They are aware that they have little or no control over the outcome of their life. It is something like, lying to yourself that you can make things better, you can change the world etc; self delusion.

Acting with this notion or belief, they manage to achieve at least 20 % of the 100% they were aiming to achieve. You can say that it is the only way in which they move forward. In the world of no hope, they try to find hope in this manner. You are sure that you cannot end global warming or poverty. However, you work towards it.

Quite contrary to the common saying; honesty is the best policy, where even I have advocated that it is best to be truthful no matter what. Being honest solves, if not saves you from a lot of problems.

However, in self delusion, you are actually lying to yourself. You make believe things that you want and you strive to get it. It can be both positive and negative. Positive in the sense that you end up receiving at least part of the want or completely. Negative in the sense that you behave overconfidently, which can be dangerous. Almost surprisingly, people suffering from depressive reality know where to draw the line.

Engaging in simple information processing solves the problems of people suffering from depression. The depressive people know that they are not able to control their outcome; hence with simple information processing, they are able to judge and make better decisions. They lie to themselves. They make themselves believe such that they attain a certain percentage of the reality instead of the full spectrum.

You give a child one or two toys. He will play with it for a long time. Compare this to surrounding him with lots of toys. He will lose interest in all of them in a short span of time.

You can visualize yourself in the hi-fi mode where you have all the access to information technology to make decisions. You consult various programs and decision making tools. In the event, you have so much information that you are lost as to what to do with it. Possibly, you can come up with various solutions and have backups should one fail. However, when you limit your choices, you have a better perspective and are able to make decision much faster and even more efficiently. I am not suggesting that you make decision in haste and without thinking through. Do not be mistaken.

Sometimes, less is a lot. Our mind is a very complex system. It knows exactly what to do when you really want to do something.