For me, I trick my brain with indirection.

When I'm just sitting around saying "am I happy yet?", I never am. It just reinforces the depression by reminding me of the challenges. Happiness, in my experience, is the sort of thing that I can't usually produce on demand.

But I can set yourself up for success. I ask myself what tends to make me happy, and then I make the hard decision to legitimately engage with it: I challenge myself to be swept up in the moment, even though it really seems like I won't be.

For example, I generally find happiness by making progress on the things I'm invested in. But, even though I am invested in being happy, I can't just dive into coding and expect it to work, because coding isn't actually what makes me happy: coding helps me accomplish things I care about, and that makes me happy.

So, first, I find a self-contained goal, like "I'm gonna work on this really cool project because it's really cool", or "I'm going to make progress in this video game because it challenges me to think in new ways". Fulfilling this goal for its own sake, because I'm legitimately invested in it, is what makes me happy. In order to succeed at happiness, I carefully choose a different target, and focus on it instead.

That's what's been working for me recently, anyway.

I have been struggling for 10 years and honestly have no answer for this. So if someone honestly could share some insight, I would be greatly appreciated. I can't rely on weed for temporary happiness most of my life.