IF YOU THINK YOU ARE HAPPY, THINK AGAIN.

I’m perfectly aware of the human nature, that is, the part of it that always wants more but that is not what I am talking about here. Knowing a problem is one huge step to solving it. Depression; especially in most parts of Africa (I’m pretty sure about Nigeria) most people have little or no knowledge about depression and I dare say that even the few that know, are sometimes misguided.

When we hear the word depression we get this image of someone with a gloomy and moody face, anti-social and so on. Fact is that all of us at one point in our lives have been depressed and hid it, some people are just better at hiding it. Hiding behind a smile, a pretty face, humour, the list is endless. And after doing it long enough and well enough, you start convincing even yourself that you are happy when the fact still remains that you are just wearing a façade. Still empty on the inside.

Of all the various forms in which this cancer manifests itself one particular one stands out. Generally we call it a “smiling depression”, countless cases of depressed comedians, models, actors, who end up taking their own life. Running down the numbers, every day an approximate 20 Nigerians take their own life and 50percent of these people do so out of depression, that is 10 people dying of depression every day here in my own country. A more reliable data puts that throughout the world approximately 2000 people die every day by suicide, 1200 of them do so as a result of depression. Check yourself; check your loved ones, because it always seems impossible to happen until it actually does.

 And finally, get close to the man that has paid the price for all life troubles; Jesus.