Fighting Off Depression

You have no right to depression. It seems a self-indulgent luxury inappropriate to the circumstances, a reaction born of weakness and self pity. And yet when you wake at 1:00 in the morning with heartburn, you feel its weight like a flak jacket draped over your shoulders. You spend the morning slouching around your office waiting for an opportunity to go home and escape interaction with anyone. You’re already tired of talking about it. But these are the very best people in your life. You should want to be there. But you would rather be anywhere else.

You go home and sit at the desk in your library and try to get busy with preparations for the week, but your ability to concentrate enough energy for the task fails you. You think you feel the slightest of flutters, maybe a skipped beat. But it was probably your over sensitive imagination.

You try hard not to overreact. You keep reminding yourself that nothing is ever as bad as it first appears to be. A couple of banks fail. The details are sketchy and convoluted. But the episode takes away a measure of your confidence.

Its been a long time since you have worried about your heart. After the surgery twenty years ago, you eventually taught yourself to ignore every little flutter. The worry was killing you. But you got over it in time, and now the worry is back with a vengeance, like it never left.

The weight of your work has become oppressive. The thought enters your mind that you might be done. Maybe 41 years is all you have to give to your work. But the time isn’t right. Didn’t you always plan on staying at it a couple more years until your Social Security mandated full retirement age of 66 years and 8 months? Didn’t you tell yourself that you needed 18 more months of growth, 18 more months of throwing money at your investments? No, you’re not done. It was just a random thought that came into your mind as you sat on the edge of your bed in the darkness at 1:00 in the morning fighting off heartburn. Mustn’t overreact.

You remind yourself of how many times you have fought through darkness before. There have been hard times far worse than this and you found a way to pull through. You have always been able to pull from some hidden strength reserve in a crisis. Your faith has sustained you through much worse, and this is no different. Only, you were a younger man then. Maybe your reserves have limits. Maybe toughness and endurance have a shelf life, a use-by date.

It doesn’t matter. You won’t quit. You never have quit. You will see it through. You will keep grinding until 66 and 8, probably longer because that’s what you do. Its who you are.

But you’re going to have to find a way to make it through without letting the anxiety and fear kill you first. Where have these new emotions come from anyway? What have you ever had to be afraid of? Nothing, that’s what. Fear was for the weak-willed and faithless, a dangerous emotion for a businessman to indulge. You have more money than ever. You are more financially secure than you have ever been. Why has worry suddenly overtaken you?

The last thing you need at this moment is the news that a former President is to be arrested in New York City this week. But when you give in just for a minute to depression its where your eyes go, to the gaudy headline with his black and white photograph staring back at you. As he tries to rouse his rabble on Twitter your mind wanders to 2024, trying to imagine just how humiliating that election will turn out to be. You cannot imagine a Joe Biden—two years older—campaigning in anything besides a walker with the Presidential Seal attached to the front. You wonder if he will bow out and what chance in hell Kamala Harris will have. Then you try to imagine a Republican challenger and your troubled heart sinks further into the murkiness of the unknown. When you read the Elon Musk Tweet about the former President winning in a landslide if he gets arrested, you hope that this isn’t one of his moments of brilliance.

So, you must fight back. You have to find a way to fight off this anxiety and fear. You must find a way to bring back confidence and optimism. Step One will involve a benign word from your cardiologist after a month of tests. Step Two might be some sanity to return to the financial markets. Step Three would include some time away to a tropical location with the love of your life.

But, there’s always the chance that none of these three are in the cards. Maybe something is wrong with the heart. Maybe chaos is the new normal in financial markets. Maybe you’ll have to cancel the trip to Cozumel.

If so…you will find a way to grind through.