PG your friend is right in the sense that you do have to make an active choice. Waiting until you feel better won't help you feel better. Sometimes you have to force yourself to do something, to "act as if" even if it takes every ounce of energy you have.
You can't change anything by worrying about it. Worrying gives you an illusion of control -- it makes you think that you are doing something about a situation by thinking about it, like maybe if you think about it and worry about it enough it won't really happen, and if you stop worrying for even ONE minute, the worst thing really will happen because you stopped thinking and worrying about it. In reality, though, worrying does nothing except make you feel even more helpless. Can you provide more for your kids by wishing things were better? No, you can't. And you won't feel any better by waiting until you feel better. It's like being forced to get out of bed and walk around almost immediately after surgery even though that's the last thing you want to do because it's so painful. Seems like a cruel thing for the nurses to do when you're exhausted and in pain but it helps you recover faster. You wouldn't feel better by waiting until you felt better before you got up.
And remember that a passive decision is still a decision. If you do nothing because everything seems too difficult, doing nothing is still a choice. Nobody is forcing you to do nothing unless they prevent you from getting up and doing something, so even if it doesn't feel like a choice, it is. If you want things to be different, you have to make a different choice. You can do it.