An Epidemic of Anxiety, Part 3
I’m Andy Temte and welcome to the Saturday Morning Muse! Start to your weekend with me by exploring topics that span leadership, business management, education, and other musings designed to support your journey of personal and professional continuous improvement. Today is October 19, 2024.
Today’s episode is the third and final in our series on the current epidemic of anxiety that is weighing many of us down. As a reminder, I’m not a medical doctor and we are not discussing potential medical drivers of anxiety and stress. Instead, we’ve been focused on things we can do to change our circumstances, both individually and societally, to reduce our collective stress and anxiety levels. Along the way, I’ve also pointed out the generational similarities and differences that are contributing to varying perceptions of anxiety levels across generations. If anxiety has you in its grip, I recommend that you talk to your doctor and/or consider engaging with a licensed therapist. There is no shame in therapy.
Taking a quick look back, in the last two episodes, we’ve discussed improved financial literacy, investments in education and lifelong learning, the impact of social media, and changes to our educational system to improve critical thinking, creativity, and decision-making skills as actions we can take to reduce stress and anxiety.
While we could likely continue this series indefinitely with a litany of reasons why stress and anxiety are excessively high today, we’ll focus on two additional drivers—climate change and geopolitical tensions.
When I was a young man in the late 70s and early 80s, climate change wasn’t on many people’s radar. Yes, there were discussions of pollution and environmental conservation, but we were more concerned about where our oil and gas were going to come from to power society than we were about reducing carbon emissions and the threat of a warming planet.
Fast forward 50 years and we’re feeling the direct effects of a warmer planet—powerful hurricanes fed by warming oceans that are also bleaching and killing off coral—vital environments for a host of sea creatures. The Atlantic Ocean current system—a planet scale conveyor belt that transports and cycles warm surface water from the western Atlantic to the depths of the eastern and southern Atlantic and back again—could slow and possibly collapse. This potential collapse is not some far off, going to happen in 500 years, prediction. This collapse could happen within my lifetime—Europe would get much colder, the Amazon would be impacted, and all manner of climate distortions and changes would ensue.
The potential collapse of the Atlantic current system is just one of a dizzying array of existential climate threats that we face around the world. Why does this matter? Insurance costs will—and are already—skyrocketing for many customers in high threat regions of the world and since insurance fundamentally relies on actuarial risk sharing, we all will pay the price of increased climate risk—even if you live in a low risk part of the world.
Human migration patterns will also change as entire populations are displaced and seek new, less risky, places to call home. Oh, and did I mention access to fresh water? The list goes on…
A rapidly changing climate is driving, and will continue to feed, geopolitical instability and polarization. At precisely the time when we need more global cooperation and alignment to tackle the existential crisis of climate change, the world is becoming more politically fragmented and polarized. The rise of social media and the existence of myriad news sources that are tailored to appeal to specific audience segments has led to the ability for the average citizen to cloister themselves away in echo chambers that serve to reinforce certain viewpoints. Our ability to think critically and analyze news and information from multiple sources has been significantly diminished.
Worse yet, politicians and the media are incentivized to stir the pot and create the perception of conflict and chaos to generate views, clicks, and engagement. They know that negativity bias is real and that humans are drawn to drama and conflict as a form of escapism, and oddly for some, a place of comfort.
Think for just a moment about the unhealthy alliance that exists between politicians and the media. Although each might rail against the other, the facts are that political ad spending directly benefits the media—a self-reinforcing cycle that neither really wants to break from. You and I end up paying for all this self-reinforcing negativity through unnecessary stress and anxiety.
These are just a few suggestions for how we can address the current epidemic of anxiety in the U.S. Increase financial literacy, get educated, adopt an agile, lifelong learning mindset, periodically unplug from social media, advocate for changes to our educational system to improve the skills of critical thinking, creativity, and decision-making, do what you can to reduce your impact on the planet, and understand when you’re being played by politicians and the media. We are all in this together. Support your neighbor, get to know individuals from other cultures and other parts of the world.
In my interviews for my other show, The Balancing Act Podcast, I ask my guests a simple question toward the end of each episode. If I gave you access to a time machine that could send a brief message to an earlier version of yourself, what’s the message and what earlier version of yourself do you send it to? Many of my guests say they would go back to who they were in their late teens and 20s with a message to take a breath. That you’ve got this. That it’s all going to be okay. Be persistent, be agile, and be confident in yourself. Great advice if we would only listen…
What else can you do personally to make an impact? Pause your own rat race for a moment to teach, coach, mentor, and inspire those who are not where you are. Help them see a clearer path. Help them to see that it will be okay. Open your ears and really listen. Don’t tell them how you wish everyone can go back to a simpler time. You know that’s not true. The only way is forward. Be an advocate and an ally. Don’t talk down at them, but speak with them. I’m gaining so much by connecting directly with students and other individuals who don’t look and talk like me, and I know you will too.
Grace. Dignity. Compassion.
