The inside of your life will always be more important than the outside in determining how happy your life will be. How you think and interpret life — how you view the world, seeing it as a cold and lonely place or one of adventure and opportunity — that will change how you feel about life. The secret to living a passionate life of happiness, then, is to start looking at life with new eyes.

Not everyone’s depression is exactly the same. The causes of it, the way it’s felt and experienced and those steps and ideas that will ultimately help to lift the cloud of depression will be in some combination different for each person struggling with that challenge. So what I’ve done is to write a sort of suicide note … in reverse. There are reasons to choose to live that may be enough to spark that same desire in someone else. My hope is that it does.

A life of emotional independence is one wherein my mood and self-esteem and self-worth and happiness are products of my own design. I am not the product of others’ opinions. My feelings are independent of theirs. Others don’t “make” me mad. I choose my emotional responses to life’s circumstances.

Depression is a reaction to real problems. It signals the need to change something. While the need to change may be real and the call for action urgent, the overriding challenge is that depression often inspires inertia. But how you feel about your life, in most cases, can be changed, no matter how chronic the root of your depression is or seems. Come see how to begin that change today.

Depression is a thousand knives continually cutting at the fabric of the heart. It is the empty space of nothingness stretching mile after forsaken mile. It is darkness and despair and the endless echo of loneliness. It is oppressive and violent and vile. And yet there are ways of shining a light into that seemingly eternal darkness. There are ways to stop the deafening scream of emotional pain that shrieks in the inner ear of the depressed. Hope is available. Here’s the first step.

Guest post from Naveen Kulkarni: Faith and doubt, two powerful states, both able to change our experiences in life. One can propel us forward, pushing through obstacles, overcoming caverns of opposition, reaching and stretching further than could have been imagined. The other creates the very opposition that thwarts achievement, slows progress and prevents us from following our dreams and passions. Come read Naveen’s insight and motivational post to help you past your doubts to have faith in your capacity to take action today.

Guest Post by Stuart Mills of Unlock the Door: Ever felt like things were so bad you had no idea what to do? We’ve all been in situations where we worried that the very worst possible thing that could happen was going to happen, even when evidence suggested it wouldn’t. Sometimes these ‘worst-case scenarios’ actually take place. But more often than not, they appear in only one place – our minds.

We fear losing it as we age. We take supplements to boost it. We buy books and listen to programs to improve it. But memory can also work against us, tying us to old beliefs, daily ratifying suspicions of self-doubt. In such cases, memory becomes insidious, eating away like tiny incessant termites gnawing at the structure of our lives. But you can stop that process beginning today. Come see!

Part II of How to Stay Happy on a Rainy Day. Is life raining down cold, bitter darkness? How can you find purpose in your trials? Change what you do, your thinking and your beliefs for greater peace.