Self-improvement: Cycle of Thoughts and Moods

While wondering why I was feeling mildly depressed earlier, I had a mild epiphany. Negative moods like depression is definitely not a bad thing. In fact, I realize now that sometimes I like to be unhappy. Without these negative moods, how can I come to revelations like this one?

Moods are not meant to be controlled but they should be influenced to form right proportions.

One should not expect to be happy all the time but neither should one expect to be depressed all of the time. An excess of negative or positive moods surely limits one's experience and perspective. The trick is to attain the right proportion of all these feelings so that life can be experienced in its entirety without being blinded by overwhelming joy or overwhelmed by hopeless despair.

Moods cannot be controlled directly but thoughts can. And a consistent string of thoughts form the mood. So if one can direct the thoughts into a coherent picture, the mood naturally forms. The idea is to control one's thoughts.

How do one control one's thoughts? Besides just forcefully controlling one's thoughts (which may be very hard), there are multiple options to indirectly affect it as well. For me, these two work well:

1. Do things that are conducive to certain thoughts.

2. Go into environments that influence thoughts in a certain way.

For instance, if I want to feel depressed and alone, I'd like to find myself in an abandoned construction site on a wet cold day doing absolutely nothing but thinking. If I want to feel happy and sociable, I'll hold a party or talk to random people. If I want to feel imaginative and creative, I'll write my novel. If I want to feel focused and alert, I'll write some code or work on building something.

Many people have the notion that they have to feel a certain way to do something. But it's really a cyclic approach. One can do something because one feels a certain way. On the other hand though, if one does not like how one feels at the moment, why not do something or go somewhere to change one's thoughts so as to change one's mood?