Depression is the most common of human emotions to be experienced. The English word depress, has the sense of being overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by what? Overwhelmed by environment, by culture, by self-knowledge? A person is knocked down, falls to the ground, and as long as he never gets up again, no one can knock him down again. Depression gives us a reason to rest. Since no one can inflict it on me again, I can catch my breath. When we are tired, insecure and easily beaten, we welcome depression and we can reasonably fall to the ground and get safe. In this sense, depression at times expresses the body’s claim to save one’s life. When the spirit is still on a high, we work obliviously, giving and giving, ignoring the depletion of the muscles and the growing fragility of life. Depression comes and it brings us down, with the devotion, love, help and consideration of others, and while the spirit is unhappy, the body rests and the strength of life is restored. Our great director and painter Mr. Chen Yifei might still be alive in this world well if he had depression to help him at that time. People who refuse the help of depression cannot but say that it is a kind of folly. In fact, depression needs to be an ability, the body’s ability to perceive emotions, stress, and fatigue, and people who lack this ability cannot feel that they are close to collapse, and overwork death often comes to them. Imagine if the word depression had not been invented by good people, we would only say to depressed people: “You are too tired, you need to rest. You can lie down more in bed and let someone else take care of you.” Then, you won’t be so stressed and you won’t let yourself be depressed for so long because you are a normal person. When you accept that you are a depressed patient, many of your excesses become justified, and you can take for granted the benefits that illness brings to you. Illness does have a powerful ability to change circumstances and relationships; the key is whether you know how to use it. Psychology explains depression as an inward release of anger. It is safe to turn it toward yourself and attack yourself because of the fear of aggression, anger and hostility leaking out to get you into trouble. Psychologists sometimes deliberately provoke depressed people, and if they are angry, the depression is immediately reduced. Another psychological explanation for depression is avoidance of responsibility. With depression there is a strong sense of powerlessness, incompetence, loss of vitality, and such a person is unable to take responsibility. When a person has done something wrong and needs to take responsibility, depression comes to help him release such responsibility. People can only become friends of depression if they accept it as an emotional norm and take positive steps to adapt and change. The German Tor Detlefsen said: “Do not think of illness as something more, think of illness in another way as something less? For example, the indicator light in the car comes on, signaling that we need to refill our gas and water.” Depression is also an indicator light of the human body, which suggests that our body needs rest, our emotions need to be cathartic, and our life needs to be loving. Only then can we restrain our desires and reduce excessive hard work, because depression clears our minds and without interest we have no motivation. Our fear of depression comes from our culture’s interpretation of depression. We always see the horrible, bad side of depression, and all we get are worries, disasters, desperation and even the decision to end our lives. If our culture reminds us that there are benefits to depression, we unconsciously channel it into a kind of tolerance and use it to gain benefits for ourselves that we would not get if we were not depressed. To be kind to your depression is to be kind to yourself.