Think and Grow Rich test: Are you elated and depressed?
October 5th, 2009 by JD
My answers to the Think and Grow Rich Self-Assessment Test
Recently, I was reminded of the self-assessment test in Napoleon Hill’s best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich.
There are fifty-four questions in that test, and I’m going to be giving my answers and thoughts on one or two of them as close to daily as I can manage. I may miss a day here or there, but I’m going to follow through until I reach the end of the test.
I’ve started the series of posts with:
Question Number 13. Are you sometimes elated and sometimes depressed?
I am very rarely elated, but I edge into depression for a short time every few years or so. Not often, but I don’t like it when it happens.
On the entire elated/depressed continuum, if elation were 1 and depression were 10, then I’d generally rank about a 4 and I don’t think I ever rise above a 2 or drop below an 8.
Lately, though, I think I’ve been around a 6 or 7 on the scale and I’m looking forward to bringing it back up.
I’ve known people who swing wildly back and forth on this scale and I’m not one of them. I tend to hover, for the most part, in the middle.
What about you?
Are you sometimes elated and sometimes depressed?
All the best,
JD
This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 9:26 am and is filed under Books, Self-Improvement, Success and Failure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 8th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
This is a strange question, and I wonder if it’s lost something in translation over the years.
It would seem that everyone is sometimes one or the other. No one walks around neutral all the time. We have good moments and we have bad moments. That’s why I think I’m having problems with the question.
If it’s talking about extremes, well, I’d assume we go there also. For instance, earlier this evening I was looking at a video someone posted on their Facebook account that made me bust a gut laughing. I was definitely overly elated at that moment, and the other two times I watched it. Then I came back to my normal state and moved on.
And I haven’t been depressed at all today, but there are those moments every couple of days when I get a moment where I wonder if I’m doing the right things, and I pause, then pull myself together and get back to the art of doing what I have to do.
Could I be that much different from everyone else? Nope. I think it’s the way all of us are.
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October 10th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Good evening, Mitch.
I agree with what you said. I think that’s about the way most, but not all, of us are.
Napoleon Hill wrote these questions early in the 20th century and I think he was using elation and depression in terms of extreme emotions, not as synonyms for happy or upset/sad.
I have a background in working in a couple of psych hospitals and I’ve seen people who seriously suffered from elation and depression.
Some call it manic/depressive. In the elation stage, nothing can go wrong. In the depressive stage, nothing can go right.
They aren’t in the continuum, they’re locked on one extreme or the other.
This can last for a few hours or for long periods of months, but the extended periods are more likely for depression.
When someone is really elated or depressed, they lose their objectivity and have a really hard time believing that any other feeling can even exist.
At least, that’s the way I interpret it.
I apologize for taking the question and answering it in the way I did.
If I were really talking about elation or depression, I’d have to say I’ve never experienced an elation state, but I’ve come close to depression a couple of times and it was hard to pull out of. It didn’t take a couple of hours, but several days or even a few weeks.
Act on your dream!
JD