Professor Martin Seligman, one of America’s top psychologists, speaking about the epidemic of depression in our society, says it’s clearly not ecological because the Amish people, who live just outside his hometown of Philadelphia, drink the same water, breathe the same air and eat the same food as everyone else, but have one tenth the rate of depression. And it’s certainly not being poor, because depression is a disease of the affluent.

Seligman places some of the blame on the rise of individualism and says: ‘a life spent pursuing short cuts to happiness allows our strengths and virtues to wither, rather than develop, and sets us up for depression.’

Those are wise words from a knowledgeable man. They remind us that Jesus said that to hang onto our lives selfishly is to lose the real value of life; but to invest our lives unselfishly is to find life.