Great Tranquility
"If you desire the great tranquility, prepare to sweat white beads" - Hakuin
Enlightenment requires hard work! But you see, there is nothing worse than wasting one’s time, existing in this state of lifeless purgatory. Looking back, this will be my great regret, not the mistakes I made. What this principle implies is that one must be willing to sacrifice the pleasures and enjoyments of the average human existence, and put in great effort, if one is to make it worthwhile. And as I can see now, I am perhaps not destined to live the life of the common person, but rather I have a destiny of solitude, and if I do not work hard then there will be no point in this sacrifice at all.
The main point I am making is this. Intellectual accomplishment requires hard work if at the end there is to be a great reward. One must find a way of escaping the depressed mindset which turns everything into inaction. Perhaps merely consistently telling oneself this truth. But regardless of one’s mental state, rigor is the key to any accomplishment. As has been said, the opposite of depression is not happiness but vitality.