You don't have to be "depressed enough" or "actually feel depression" to be "allowed" to feel bad. Feeling empty is valid. Feeling slightly sad is valid. This isn't a "test" to determine if you are "allowed" to feel bad. You are allowed to feel bad, full stop. Your problems aren't "too small". You aren't "just lazy and making excuses" because other people "have it worse". If you hurt - you hurt, no matter how big or small. 

I'm just tired of people saying "Well, there is a real clinical depression, but everyone else is just making excuses for being lazy or failing". No, fuck you. Every problem is important, no matter how "big or small it is". Maybe it's not "clinical depression", so what? People are allowed to be sad, to feel unsatisfied, frustrated, hopeless, burned out. Especially because the world we live in is so fucked.

People just say that because they need to feel superior by putting other people down and feeding their ego. And maybe also because they themselves actually really want to be "allowed" to feel bad, but they internalized the message that it's not allowed and that it's just an excuse to be lazy so they feel really angry and resentful at people who do believe that it's okay to feel bad and that's enough a reason to seek help. Also survivorship bias is a big one too, I think. Like yeah buddy, maybe "going to the gym and reading self help books" did it for you Jimmy, I don't argue with that. But you know what? Everyone is different. Just because "you tried harder and it simply worked" approach worked for you, doesn't mean that it will work for everyone. And why the fuck do you assume that I'm not trying hard enough? I'm probably trying harder that most people and still, it isn't enough sometimes. We only hear of the success stories, but we rarely hear of failures.

Yeah...