FROM the bloodshed in Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza to the return of Donald Trump, there are so many reasons to despair. But a little deliberate optimism can go a long way.
Well, maybe my opinion might leave you speechless at first. The world is not bad. A small fraction of people in that world are bad, or as is the better term, “evil.” So what?!
The vast majority of the people in this world are good, decent, reliable, honest, friendly, and hard-working. I know. That is because in the last 72 years I have been to 120 countries and personally met many hundreds of those people . Only a tiny fraction of those people were truly evil. But, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” You are more aware of the bad ones because they are more visible. Good people are the so-called silent majority.
The kind of pessimism and cynicism that you are espousing amounts to a self-fulfilling prophecy. You are seeing the bad that you expect to see, and you’re ignoring all the good things as if they were invisible. Yep, that bad is out there — but there is far more good than that. Don’t do that to yourself unless you just enjoy self-inflicted misery.
The point of life is living it. There is no other point. Life is its own justification, and it needs nothing further to justify itself.
Let’s be honest: The world can be a pretty terrible place – from personal losses to national tragedies and global disasters and everything in between. It’s easy to feel depressed about the state of the world.
Just thinking about the sheer amount of awfulness around us can be completely overwhelming — even paralyzing. The problems are far too big for any single person to solve them. So what can you do? Should you do anything? Should you give up? Is there any “should” to begin with?
It’s normal to feel discouraged about the world.
You may have heard this expression: “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.” It’s not just anger — the same goes for depression. Research has shown that people who feel depressed often make more accurate predictions of events than people who don’t. Lots of bad things happen in the world, and feeling bad about them is a normal reaction. It’s okay to feel:
* Grief about what’s been lost
* Anxious about what’s going to happen next
* Overwhelmed by how big the problems are, or how much work it will take to solve them
* Disillusioned by the people in positions of power
* Guilty for not doing more
* Paralyzed by all these feelings
These feelings are all normal. Of course, they’re not fun. And they’re not always particularly useful. Depression may help you clearly see how terrible things are — but it’s also the leading cause of disability in the world.
Equally unhelpful: being told to “just only stay positive.” Ignoring the horrible things you see around you won’t make them go away, any more than getting depressed about them will. If you want to function in the world and make it a better place, you need to take care of yourself — and then find ways to help however you can.
I can count on my Filipino family for more than 28 years now. My main medicine in all this global chaos.
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Email: doringklaus@gmail.com or follow me on Facebook, Linkedin or X (Twitter) or visit www.germanexpatinthephilippines.blogspot.com or www.klausdoringsclassicalmusic.blogspot.com/PN
