The world can be an awfully dark place, indeed.

There is so much negativity that circulates within us and all around us. Even just the littlest things can put a damper on our day and prevent us from smiling. It feels like dark clouds are hovering over us, about to rain down any second now. It feels like we have so much weight on our shoulders that we carry around every waking moment of our lives and we sometimes have trouble finding light throughout the day; something we truly enjoy that makes us happy.

Not everybody feels the way that we do and sometimes it makes us angry when we do see people that are happy.

We don't want to be angry at anyone, but sometimes our thoughts continue to spin in our heads, making it difficult to wish happiness upon anyone else but ourselves... Because it is us, that feels so alone.

People continue to tell us that they are here for us and that they love us so much, but it doesn't make us feel any better, because we wonder how, in any world, someone could love us. We don't think we're anything special. Our least favorite part of each day is looking into the mirror. We think that we're just another number on this planet... A spec in just one of the many, many galaxies that exists.

But notice how I use the word "us" and "we" quite often.

This indicates that there are more than just one of us that feel the way that we do. We aren't so alone, after all. We may feel trapped under deep waters, but I'll bet that if we look around, there's more than just you and I that feel this way.

Something that I have realized in the past couple of years is that nothing works unless we do - nothing improves unless we improve, and that is so important.

Yes, there are days where we feel like staying in bed all day would be better for all of us; if we made no interactions with anyone or anything, but we get up and move on with our day anyway. That's a start, isn't it? If we keep moving forward and keep looking forward, we can and will eventually forget about what is behind us. None of that matters anymore, but what's in front of us does.

See, the thing about depression that I've figured out inside my tangled up head is that we can choose to stay where we are or we can choose to better ourselves every day with everything that we do. Whether we choose to keep moving or not, the Earth is going to continue to rotate regardless. We either proceed or fall behind.

I've battled depression for five consecutive years now, but each year I've improved.

I've felt better about myself and am starting to become more confident with myself, and that, in my opinion, is the most important aspect of life - self-confidence

That being said, we cannot wake up and expect things to change instantly. It's the little things that we do, think about, and work to improve on each and every day that will build up and correlate with each other that will make a difference.

Everybody is different in their own way, so different techniques are going to work for different people. We have to find techniques that will work for us.

What I have found, that I believe could help everyone, is trying your absolute best to be a better person and do good for other people.

Try to put smiles on others' faces every single day. The phrase, "Smiling is contagious" is absolutely true. If we make other people smile by doing something that makes them happy, it makes us feel good about ourselves. We start to think that we do have an impact in this world, because we truly do.

I believe that we have all been put on this earth for a reason.

We all have a purpose to why we're here, we just need to find out what it is. Once we find out what our purpose is and we strive towards the goals that we have set for ourselves, we will progress and have a sense of accomplishment, and that is when we will start to find happiness.

Depression is real, but there is always a way to break the surface and swim out of those deep waters