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“Dr Jocelyn Dunphy-Blomfield is a senior lecturer in psychological medicine at Monash University who works in the area as a philosopher with conceptual issues. “I’d be inclined to think unhappiness is when life isn’t full and you feel things are lacking, or you can feel worse than that in suffering pain and anguish,” she said. “It’s when the pain and anguish get to the point that you can’t cope, or lead a reasonably full or functional life that you can be diagnosed as suffering depression in a clinical sense.”

“Dr Dunphy-Blomfield reckons Aristotle was on the right track by recognising sadness and challenges as vital components of what he called “the good life … which is much more complex than just going out and having fun. It involves relations with others and what he called virtues. These were qualities like courage that allow people to keep themselves well by living with moderation, and coping with the stress and grief that are part of any life.”

Aristotle’s main argument was to take a steady course, try a little of everything that life has to offer and rate your happiness against the big picture. “Call no man happy until he is dead,” is how he described it.

Says Professor John Bigelow, a philosopher with Monash University: “If happiness is what we are supposed to strive for, then it should not be thought of as a current state, but a meaningful overall pattern in a life … When people we love die, we are prompted to think over their life as a whole; and this often prompts us, painfully, to think about our own lives.”

Read this great article here.

The WHO (World Health Organization) warns that depression will become the world’s second biggest killer and cause of disability by the year 2020.   This warning is certainly scary, but honestly not surprising.

Depression amongst young people was virtually non-existent 50 years ago and we know the average onset age of clinical depression in 1935 according to The National Institute of Mental Health was around 35 years old.  In 1995 the average age on onset hovered around 14.5 years old.

It seems to be at a point where it is imperative we provide our children with the tools and techniques to gain emotional intelligence and provide them with Character Education at a time in life when they need it most, which will in turn effect the rest of their life.