Are Stress & Sadness The New Sanity?

 

Are we ALL on the way to getting sick when so much around us is toxic?

Between the daily reports of increasing Covid numbers (again), the food we aren’t safe to eat, the unusual and ever-changing climate, the planet we aren’t sure we could save, and the endless unfulfilling hours we spend online, some days it seems like this world is taking a step off a cliff.

I read stories of multitudes of us suffering from deep sorrow, uncontrollable nerves and dark nights of the soul. I have to think the rest of it makes things even worse.

Then there are the underlying issues that are unique to the female population: A new mother sits in an office bathroom stall pumping breast milk, longing for her baby. A woman sits at a bus stop staring at a model in a magazine, rebuking her own butt or belly with a bitterness she would never show anyone else.

As informed as we try to be, it seems like all of us who believe that what makes us truly beautiful — our intelligence, compassion, sense of humor, and kindness — hardly matters.

It makes you wonder if those of us that are not already anxious or depressed aren’t headed that way as a result of this destructive culture we live in.

Some days it makes me think that the culture itself is making it more difficult for those who are already ill to heal. Maybe we are all on our way to getting sick when so much around us is toxic.

Maybe one day we’ll decide that this is not the way to be. Maybe we will realize that we are a species with enviable minds and hearts that are more good than bad. Maybe we’ll realize that the big gifts are the sun and the moon and the love we can give to as many as will accept it. That we have the resources within us to fix this mess.

Maybe then we can live in a world that feels good and makes sense and we will be eager to get out of bed.

Maybe then the anxious and depressed will realize there’s nothing wrong with them, but what’s wrong with the world?