Covey's First Habit and Depression

Worry about the things that are in your control. Don't worry about the things that are not in your control. This is Stephen Covey's First Habit from his highly acclaimed book 7 Habits of highly Effective People. What this means is that we need to have the mental capacity to block worring about the things that are not in my control and shift the focus to the things that are in my control. 

This wonderfully expressed and portrayed in the famous quote referring to "I wouldn't think of things that are not in my control today" because those are in my circle of concern about which I can't do any thing today. "I would only think of them tomorrow. Because tomorrow is another day." Scarlett O'Hara makes this resolve at the height of disappointment when she reaches her palatial house Tara to find that the strength and support she was looking for in her household, and her father is all gone as related to the plight in which the rich found themselves after the civil war ended as depicted in Margaret Mitchell's famous book/movie "Gone with the Wind". This resolve points out that I want to be fresh tomorrow to focus on how to bring things in my circle of concern into my circle of Influence. I will start by only focusing and working on things that are in my control. This will expand my circle of Influence and the consequent expansion will eventually encompass things that were previously only in my circle of concern. This expansion will bring them in my control.

Depression is a state in which we keep on thinking about the things that are not in my control and about which we can't do any thing. This saps our energy as we keep going round and round thinking about things of which we do not have any convincing solution. We only get depressed when we keep on thinking about things that are not in my control (that is,  those which are in my circle of Concern). And we don't convert the things which are in my control in to action items that can be completed in specific time frame.