I think the major problem with modern folk psychology about depression is that it doesn't heed sex differences. Evolution has built men and women differently but all self help writing now is written by women and addressed to other women.

Women are happy when they feel safe and loved. Men are happy when they feel strong and capable. The depressed men feel they are paralyzed or forced into passivity. Shifting down or pampering oneself helps women and usually gives a temporary relief for men too but ends men feeling even weaker.

Your example with carriage tires is an excellent one. You don't probably get depressed when you encounter real problems you have to tackle, like with tending the animals, building stuff, or programming. You get depressed when you find out you cannot act on some rather harmless and easy problem. The fact that you could do with soft tires and leave the problem unsolved actually made it a lot harder for you than if, say, your horse's life had dependent on it and you had to act regardless of how you feel about it.

We all admire will and determination, fighting against all the odds, but we cannot see how to start, and when we fail even with the small everyday problems, we get even more discouraged.