Through Stoicism, I got over depression and learned to code.
By: Kevin Canlas
Tags: Self Improvement, Coding, Depression, Stoicism, Development

Through Stoicism, I got over depression and learned to code.

How the happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.

One of my reaffirmations. Take it! I made it specifically for the iPhone 11 Pro. Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash, text added by author.

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TL;DR

My working hours were cut at the start of the pandemic, got severely depressed, started maladaptive daydreaming, read self-improvement books that didn’t resonate with me, found Stoicisim through Ryan Holiday’s books, learned that most of my issues were within myself (I was making myself upset), learned to value my time, learned to design and code during my free time, slowly got over depression, built a Chrome extension to help in reminding myself to be Stoic, still learning to design and develop in an attempt to get a dev job or freelance.

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The root of my problems

In late February/early March, my industry was hit hard by both the pandemic and the pre-existing economic decline of my industry. I normally commute from Canada to the US for work, but with the borders shut down, I was left working from home. During this time my working hours were also severely reduced. With no routine, no physical contact with friends and coworkers, and barely even a job, I was depressed.

The pandemic and economic downturn was a wake up call for many of us, including myself. With idle hands, we tend to get deep into our own heads, and sometimes, we stay there for too long. It was during this enormous amount of free time that I realized that I hadn’t done anything significant in my life. I was severely depressed at this point. Desperate, I started delving back into self-improvement books, only to realize that most of these books never really resonated with me.

It was around late March that I started watching YouTube videos about self-improvement. I came across a YouTuber by the name Captain Sinbad, who created a comedy sketch on Stoicism, which eventually led me to looking up the subject and finding Ryan Holiday and /r/Stoicism. I started reading through the posts in that subreddit and eventually ended up reading all of Ryan Holiday’s books on the subject of Stoicism. Over the next few weeks I started reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, On the Shortness of Life by Seneca and Discourses by Epictetus.

Self-awareness is the first step to self-improvement

Eventually, everything clicked: I wasn’t homeless, I didn’t lose any possessions, I hadn’t lost my job, I was only working part-time, and I didn’t get sick. In reality, I was given more time. I now had more time to re-evaluate my life and find out what was the root of my problem. And what I found was that it was my perception of the events that made me depressed.

“Everything hangs on one’s thinking… A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.”

— Seneca “You are hurt the moment you believe yourself to be.”

— Epictetus “The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.”

— Marcus Aurelius

The Stoics were right. Everything was in my head and I needlessly put myself through Hell. I realize now that self-awareness is the first step to self-improvement. If you don’t know that you have a problem, how do you expect yourself to solve your issues? The practice of reflecting on my thoughts was new to me and drastically changed the way I saw my own behavior and outlook.

It was also during this time that I started to re-evaluate my career goals, so I started to learn basic design and development. I had always wanted to be a developer so I started to learn HTML, CSS and JavaScript through YouTube and a couple udemy courses. Writing this out now, it sounds like I had a complete turnaround after finding out about Stoicism… But that’s not how it happened.

It’s easy to repeat these quotes but embodying these ideas is another monster of its own. Because of this, my depression didn’t disappear overnight, but at the very least I knew I had a problem. I also knew that I wanted to be a developer (although I’m still not a real developer). I was finally aware of my own thoughts, both good and bad. But even with this awareness, it didn’t come easy. On most days my depression would lead me to spending 2–4 hours laying in bed and daydreaming of a different situation, wishing I’d be in a better place and time, fantasizing of a different life, trying to force lucid dreaming, etc.. I started relying on daydreaming to put a temporary on pause my depression. Daydreaming brought me to a different, better world. But once reality hit, once I had to get back to work or do anything related to my daily life, depression hit even harder than the days before. Later on I realized that this was a real psychiatric condition called maladaptive daydreaming. Coincidentally, I’d actually come across this before in the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Nowadays, re-watching that movie really messes me up.

The solution to my problems

Trying to get rid of my daydreaming, I started journaling like the Stoics. Every night I would write down the mistakes I made during the day (like daydreaming for 4 hours, not coding, etc.) and my goals for the next day. Along with these mistakes and goals, I would write down some of my favorite Stoic quotes to reinforce the ideas of Stoicism. The next morning I would read the quotes in an attempt to memorize them, then read the mistakes and try to fix them (or at least, try not to repeat them) and try to complete my goals of the day. I failed most of the time, barely even writing out a single line of code on most days, but every time I succeeded, I would celebrate it because I was 1% better than the day before. Then the next day, another 1%. And then another. And then another. Eventually it got to the point where the small action of journaling snowballed into a drastic shift in mindset that allowed me to accomplish the tasks that I wanted to do every day.

Today I wake up and code. I code during work hours when my hours are cut. I code after work. I code until I sleep. I’m completely aware of my thoughts and how they affect me. I’m completely aware of my time and use of focus. I’ve even taken up the ukulele, jogging and workouts daily. These changes seem drastic on paper, but the changes were achieved over six months. Six months of deliberate thoughts, actions and reaffirmations that pushed me to rewire my brain. And recently, I’ve even been using my own Chrome extension to help reaffirm the ideas of Stoicism in my head.

None of this was easy, so please don’t take this as gloating. That’s not my intention at all. I’m just saying that I appreciate the /r/Stoicism community and that if you’re currently in the same position as I was, there’s a brighter side to everything if you choose to look and take advantage of it.

Through Stoicism I realized that journaling is the greatest form of self-improvement because it is the physical manifestation of self-awareness. And again, without self-awareness, it’s impossible to make positive changes. Through Stoicism I’ve become deliberate with my thoughts, words, actions, time and focus and I’m much happier and more productive because of it.

With that, I’ll leave you guys with my favorite Stoic quote:

“Get busy with life’s purpose, toss aside empty hopes, get active in your own rescue.”

— Marcus Aurelius

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I mentioned earlier that I built a Chrome extension. It’s called Stoic. It’s basically a bare-bones version of Momentum without all of the extra features. It simply shows randomized Stoic quotes from famous Stoic philosophers and practitioners. It also shows the date, time and week of the year to remind us to set our priorities, to cherish the time that we have right now, and to figure out what truly matters to us.

If you guys need anyone to talk to, message me here or reddit/IG/Twitter at the same username: kvncnls. Whether it’s about how I got started in design/development, Stoicism or depression, I’m free to talk.

I’ve got lots of free time after all. :)

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I posted this story on /r/Stoicism and got some feedback so I’d like to clarify a few things with this edit.

EDIT 1: I mentioned maladaptive daydreaming as one of my issues and looking back, I think it’s a huge byproduct of ego. Ego causes you to tell yourself stories that are untrue; essentially living in imagination. Your daydreaming/fantasizing is the byproduct of your need to be the center of the world. Daydreaming is a “get-rich-quick” scheme, a form of instant gratification; a temporary pause on the real world. I think that if you have a big ego and are prone to instant gratification, you’ll have tendencies of daydreaming… At least, that’s just how I was.

EDIT 2: Some people have mentioned using Stoicism to cure their depression. I don’t think it’s a cure for depression nor do I think that you should do what I did. Stoicism doesn’t replace professional help. My big ego resulted in me having a lot of pride, so I ended up NOT seeking help. If I had professional help for depression, I’m sure it wouldn’t have taken me 6 months to accomplish what I did.