UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: Life Detective searches for the answer to “How did we get here?” First up, 2022 life status report: Overwhelmed and under the influence.
Happy New Year 2022! Now, why are we all so damn stressed?
I’ll start with a simple question: How are you doing?
Me? I am good . . . well . . . actually, I’m trying to convince myself I am good. In reality, I am stressed more often than I used to be and spend more time wringing my hands than laughing and having fun.
What about everyone else? My personal observations suggest most everyone is stressed and having less fun. Statistics and reporting on the topic appear to validate my perceptions. A recent U.S. News & World Report article described the results from a 2021 American Psychological Association (APA) survey: 84% of Americans reported having at least one emotion associated with prolonged stress within the past two weeks and 84% also indicated the United States has serious societal issues that need to be addressed. How about outside the United States? The Gallup 2021 Global Emotions report indicated that people were more stressed, angry and worried than any time in the past 15 years as described in this Forbes article. Halfway through January, major media outlets are reporting on “all-time high” stress levels in the midst of the fourth wave of the COVID pandemic.
Socially, we seem to be more divided than ever (at least the 50+ years I’ve been alive). Political division amplified through an “always on” flow of news, propaganda and misinformation has driven a wedge between not just political opponents, but among friends and family as well as persons we encounter at work, school, church, and social gatherings. By March 2020, the trend of increasing discord in politics and society overall was seemingly reaching a peak as the 2020 U.S. presidential election gathered steam.
A pandemic unites us all!! Well, maybe not . . .
The first major pandemic in 100 years came along in March 2020. At the outset, the COVID pandemic may have looked like a much needed “social distancing timeout” for misbehaving adults. Everyone stayed home a few weeks, taking time to connect with family and old friends, share home-baked recipes and binge-watch some TV while we hoped COVID would blow over. A chance to reset, to let bygones be bygones and revisit our shared humanity.
Well, that didn’t last! Just a few weeks in, the pandemic turned into the next political/social battlefield and served to sharpen our differences in profound ways as it threatened our individuality, perspectives on “the common good”, and our very survival. Technology gave us enhanced communication capability so we could virtually “get in someone’s face” from 3,000 miles away. We had quickly pivoted from “common good” to: “You’re no good and I’ve got nothing in common with you. Forget the 3,000 miles between us . . . I’m not sure we’re even from the same planet.” We were back on the path to disunity.
Stress and disunity: to infinity and beyond?
So now it is 2022: humanity has made great advances in lifespan, healthcare, transportation, creature comforts, and entertainment. While COVID may not yet be gone, it would seem reasonable to believe that within the next year we will have developed enough defenses, treatments, and protocols to enable more “normal” living — at least some of the time. But it seems the “normal” we will return to will be one of social disunity (many media outlets are already discussing whether another American civil war lies ahead) which in turn means more stressful living. Thus, we appear destined to continue stressed and combative living for the foreseeable future. How did we get here?
Summary:
This is the first in a series of posts from the Life Detective examining “how did we get here?”. Since “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”, Life Detective will focus on recent phenomena in American culture that took us from the neighborly living of 1980 to siloed, divided living in 2022 with political dysfunction and talk of the “next American civil war”, and ultimately examine how we deal with the stress of being a human in 2022.
The “How did we get here?” series:
- Overwhelmed and Under the Influence in 2022 (this article)
- USA up to 1980: How Change Occurs in America (next)
- 1980 to present: BIG takes control; Speedy enables information overload
- 2010 – present: Big Brother is watching . . . and talking
- 2022: How do we manage life in the digital, divided world?
