This the question noted psychiatrist Viktor Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning) would sometimes ask his patients suffering from depression. It seems rather irresponsible to ask, I know, but given Frankl's background - surviving four different Nazi concentration camps between 1942 and 1945, where he served as psychiatrist and physician to the other inmates while an inmate himself - I think he was genuinely curious and really wanted to know why.

He had seen people in horrific situations where one's life could be ended on the whim of a guard, and wondered, "What keeps these people going? Why don't they just give up?" The answers to his questions helped him formulate his particular brand of psychotherapy, called Logotherapy, in the years following WWII.

This is the question all people who suffer from depression must ask themselves at one time or another. Especially if your depression gets to the point where you are feeling so much pain that suicide begins to look like a viable alternative to the pain you are currently suffering.

For myself, I have felt that way a few times in my life. I have probably said that I'd like to kill myself more than a dozen times, but I was in an extremely frustrated, depressed, or rage state at the time, and was simply blowing off steam. It actually felt good to say it, to express it, to blow it off. It let people around me know how upset I was - that I was willing to go to these lengths so people would take notice at how deeply disturbed I was and sympathize with me. I'm sure it didn't feel very good to the people around me who had to listen to my angry and frustrated rants, however.

So many times in life, I've had the following experience. Something wonderful or unexpected happens, and for a while, I take delight in it. Then I have the thought that inevitably follows, "See, if you had killed yourself, you wouldn't have been around for that." Which is true.

The point that this illustrates is similar to the Buddhist axiom, "All life is transitory." Your bad times will come and go, as will your good times. The question is, what keeps you going through your bad times long enough so that you can hang around for the good times? It's an important question I believe, given that approximately one million people per year commit suicide, making it the tenth-leading cause of death worldwide.

For Frankl, his patients would answer: in one life there is love for one's children to tie to; in another life, a talent to be used; in a third, perhaps only lingering memories worth preserving. This is what lead him to theorize that meaning, more than anything else, is what keeps us going. This contrasted with the other two main schools of psychological thought in Vienna at the time. Alfred Adler's incorporation of Nietzsche's will to power in his individual psychology, and Sigmund Freud's pleasure principle, the idea that people are motivated mainly by seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.

But does meaning have to be meaningful? One man's meaning is another man's trivia. Sometimes a good distraction is worth its weight in gold.

I once got myself out of feeling that nothing in life meant anything to me at the moment by listening to a Doctor Who podcast. I was sitting around on a Sunday, feeling sorry for myself because I couldn't afford to go to the Doctor Who convention that year.

Bored and blue, I found some podcasts where people were talking about the convention, getting drunk at the convention, interviewing people who came by their booth, etc. It gave me a real feeling of being plugged into the scene, even though I was physically miles away. I was astounded at how many podcasts on this subject there were. I explored them all. I must have listened to nothing but Doctor Who podcasts of every variety for the next three days. I was fascinated by all of them, and by then I was completely out of my blue funk. I felt connected to others during this time, and that took away the feelings of loneliness that often characterizes depression.

This morning I got up at 8 am and walked to my local Starbucks for a cup of decaf coffee. Just this simple action alone was meaningful to me. I usually go to bed late and wake up around 11 am, but I wanted to start getting up earlier to see if I could get more done during the day.

Also, sleeping late also seems like "depressive" behavior that I wanted to start changing. It was wonderful to see the world awake and alive at 8 am, a sight I rarely see. It has caused in me a desire to gradually keep setting my wakeup time back until I can reach the goal of getting up at 6 am. Looking forward to reaching this goal, and seeing the world waking up at 6 am has acquired real meaning for me. And, meaning, as we now know, is what keeps you going when you'd rather stop and end it all.

Though not a suicide, songwriter Warren Zevon was the first to admit his lifestyle lead to his early demise at age 56. When informed of his diagnosis of inoperable lung cancer in 2002, his response was, "I'm OK with it. But it'll be a drag if I don't make it until the next James Bond movie comes out."

So, meaning doesn't have to be that meaningful, it just has to be meaningful to you. If your passion in life seems trivial by the world's standards, realize that no matter how trivial, it may be the thing in life that keeps you going. At least until the next Harry Potter movie comes out.