“Most conversations are just monologues said in the presence of another person.”
Day 22 Morning Scorecard and Support Self-Reflection:
Societal Depression Not Individual Depression
Everything you know about depression could be wrong.
We often tell depressed people that “no one but you can turn this thing around.” While well-intentioned, this statement portrays depression indirectly as the individual's fault and fails to recognize the multiple ways society has turned against them to make them sick. In the past, a tribe would gather around someone who was struggling but in today's world, we hand them some medication and say good luck. The structure of society today is set up to make us sick, with many of us spending the majority of our time interacting with screens instead of each other while we’re stuck in meaningless jobs that do not give us a sense of purpose. Yet, we still struggle to understand why individuals are becoming depressed when the world around them sets them up for failure. Yes, individuals have to take responsibility for their lives, but as a group, we also have to face the reality that our society is struggling as well. So not only should the individual help pick themselves up, but as supportive members of the same tribe, we can also work on improving the environmental conditions that make depression possible. Instead of putting more pressure on depressed individuals to "fix" themselves, maybe we can focus on fixing the root causes of depression: societal disconnection, misguided individualism, and pandemic loneliness.
FACT: In the U.S. there are 123 suicides per day.
TAKEAWAY: Suicides are the seventh leading cause of preventable death in the U.S, yet little is done to get to the root causes of suicidal ideation.
Reach Out to an Old Friend
Social media was supposed to help us expand our “social network,” but it seems to have done the opposite. We now hide behind our screens more than ever and personal interactions have become the exception, not the rule. Face to face contact now seems too messy and unpredictable, most of us preferring to selectively manage our personal relationships from a digital distance. The algorithms of smartphones and laptops successfully giving us dopamine bursts of pleasure but leaving us feeling empty moments after. Our lives are missing the necessary neurochemicals of serotonin that help us to feel satisfied and oxytocin that makes us feel safe and connected. It turns out these brain chemicals only appear when we connect in person, but hardly ever when communicated via screens. Texting and “likes” may be quick and easy, but it turns out our bodies and minds still require people reaching out in real life.
FACT: Hugging a person for twenty seconds releases the neurochemical oxytocin (love chemical) into your system.
TAKEAWAY: Humans evolved to connect through touch not "likes."
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”