Actually, I think we concentrate on others because we are unconsciously afraid if we didn't have them as our focus, that would just leave us and our own problems to think about

We can't really take the blame or "be" the other person's life, we can only imagine that is what is happening. If someone else is unhappy; my feeling like it is my fault is still just my feeling, not the reality of what happened. We can't know or control what someone else feels; they can't either! We feel what we feel; feelings are just information for us about how we are perceiving ourselves and others, not something to "control". If I feel like I am at fault in another's life, that's just me doing a number on myself, not helping/hurting the other person.

I use feelings that don't "fit" like that, to check my own heart and see what's really wrong inside me. When I get road rage, for example, that isn't like me so I know I'm angry because I'm frightened or feeling helpless about something else in my life. I look at my day and realize my coworker's breast cancer is making me anxious; I am very fond of her and there's nothing I can do to make that situation better; "Life" is in there doing its thing and it's not in my control. When I look and realize that, the anger/road rage disappears and I can think of ways to comfort myself instead of projecting my fears outward.

When I'm feeling depressed, for me, it is another case of feeling stuck and like I can't help myself. I'm usually worried too, I'm getting older, my husband is getting older, eventually bad things have to happen! Both of us are morbidly obese and our health is showing chronic wear and tear as a result. I don't work anymore and feel like I'm kind of on the sidelines; other people/the news concentrates on jobs, the economy, families, etc. and those have pretty much passed me by. I dropped out of graduate school because there wasn't any "point" in getting a graduate degree; it's not like I need to get a job (or even could get a job at my age). I've tried 8,472 different "hobbies"/interests in my long life and have pretty much run out of new things to try to interest myself with? You can imagine the problem.

So, what am I likely to do? Come online, spend time on the computer, post at sites and forums like this one. Look away from my problem toward "busyness". I own three websites, 8-10 active email accounts. I don't have to worry about money, I live in a wonderful small house on the water, my husband and I own a boat and an RV, I have my own car. I pay no attention to the cost of food (just totaled up a month's grocery bills for the two of us and it came to nearly $1,000) and we ate out at restaurants (I don't do fast food) an average of twice a week last month with an average bill of $43. I have "nothing" to be depressed about?

I need to turn around and look at myself, feel my feelings and "deal" with them. I need to spend more time in my physical world, meeting and talking with people also struggling, as we all are. I need to spend less time online, sitting in this chair, "thinking" about Life, instead of living it. It's the thinking that generates "wrong" feelings. If one is doing something, one has to concentrate on the doing but if one if thinking, is writing or working online, playing on Facebook, not engaging, face-to-face with Life.

Trying, I bet you take on the blame of others' failures, in your head? Next time you catch yourself doing that, rethink and work on the actual problem instead of just "stopping" with, "It's all my fault". I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes? "Fix the problem, not the blame." If you "want" to take the blame, go ahead, but also work on the problem. If it's not your problem, if you literally can't help fix it, then deny yourself the blame? Because we can all work on our own problems, why? Because they're ours! But we can't work on someone else's self-esteem or failures because they're not ours. Work at thinking backwards when you want to take on blame; first see if you can fix the problem and, if you can't, then it's not yours and you don't "get" the blame either. If a child fails a test, it's not the parent's fault for not studying! You can't "make" another person do what you think is right; it's not your life for the doing; you can only "do" in your own life.