I'm not aiming this at anyone in particular, but if you want to help someone who's having a bad time, especially who's depressed, try to find another way of helping instead of saying "is there anything I can do to help?"
That offer seems helpful but it means the person who is suffering now has a new task: finding you something to do.
Instead think of a way you can help and offer that.
It takes the burden onto yourself, and crucially it shows what level of help you actually mean.
@Loukas Me neither, but what else do you say? "Good luck with that"? We can't provide meaningful help to people we don't really know.
@LouisIngenthron is that a question or a statement of what you already believe?
@Loukas A little of both. If someone I don't know tells me they have cancer, I don't really know how to react to that other than very basic sympathy. And that's what the hollow offer has become in modern language... an expression of sympathy.
@LouisIngenthron sympathy is great, so express it in ways that aren't hollow offers please.
@LouisIngenthron I don't like hollow offers.