I had a casual chat with a 26 year old the other week that was so enlightening for me, maybe less so for him, that I had to share. It went something like this: Me: Isn't life amazing? I feel great after that red light sauna! So pumped!! Him: You know, we feel betrayed.
Me: Huh? Oh. Really. Go on. Him: You know my generation thinks the world is doomed right? Nobody inspires us, we've been lied to by every politician, authority figures meant to keep us safe can't be trusted. We have no purpose or real ability to make an impact or engender change and any cause we embrace either gets shut down or radicalized and then marginalized.
Me: Oh wow, I have so much work to do with a whole generation.
He was referring to the largest-ever survey of climate anxiety in teenagers and young adults in the journal Lancet Planetary Health which canvassed 10,000 16 to 25 year olds, in the US, UK, France, Finland, Australia, Portugal, Brazil, India, the Philippines & Nigeria.
The results were as follows:
Three in four young people said the future is frightening
Nearly half said their feelings about climate change negatively impact their daily life.
Around six in 10 said governments are not protecting the planet, while a similar number said governments are betraying them. Those who felt betrayed by governments were more likely to report climate distress.
Close to 40% said that fears about the future have made them reluctant to have children of their own.
The authors concluded “Distress about climate change is associated with young people perceiving that they have no future, that humanity is doomed, that governments are failing to respond adequately, and with feelings of betrayal and abandonment by governments and adults,” the authors wrote. “These are chronic stressors which will have significant, long-lasting and incremental negative implications on the mental health of children and young people.”
The destruction of nature, our forests and oceans is something I'm passionately opposed to, but is it a truth that we're doomed? I thought I'd turn to one of my hero's, Peter Diamandis for his take. Peter is the founder of the X-prize , Singularity University and co-author with Steven Kotler of numerous books including Bold, Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think and The Future Is Faster Than You Think. He didn't let me down.
"We truly are living in the most exciting time to be alive." he says, but, "we live in a world where we are constantly bombarded by negative news from every angle. If you turn on CNN (what I call the Crisis News Network), you'll predominantly hear about death, terrorism, airplane crashes, bombings, financial crisis and political scandal. I think of the news as a drug pusher, and negative news is their drug.
There's a reason for this. "We humans are wired to pay 10x more attention to negative news than positive news. Being able to rapidly notice and pay attention to negative news (like a predator or a dangerous fire) was an evolutionary advantage to keep you alive on the savannahs of Africa millions of years ago. Today, we still pay more attention to negative news, and the news media knows this. They take advantage of it to drive our eyeballs to their advertisers."
So that's why so many of the phone addicted generation feel so bad, but are there signs of abundance outside of our black mirrors? I turned to Vox's research 23 charts and maps that show the world is getting much, much better for some answers and stats:
1. Extreme poverty has fallen.
2. World hunger is falling.
3. Child labor rates are falling.
4. Life expectancy is rising. (up 6 years since 1990) Seen especially rising in poor countries in Africa and Asia.
5. Child mortality has fallen by more than half since 1990.
6. Maternal mortality declined by 43% from 1990 to 2015.
7. Average human height has improved! Seems silly, but height is as used as an indirect measure of living conditions, which have improved considerably.
8. More people than ever have access to malaria bed nets.
9. Parasitic infection rates are lower than ever, including for Guinea Worm, for which cases have been reduced by 99.99% from 1986-2020.
10. The rate of Americans who smoke cigarettes is also way down. As of July 2021, only 16% of Americans reported smoking in the past week – down from a high of 45% in the 1950s and 60s.
11. Violent crime rates in the US have decreased across the board since 1997.
12. The world is more educated than ever before, with the number of years spent in school increasing in almost every country.
13. Literacy rates have improved as well
14. More and more people worldwide are getting access to the internet.
15. And renewable energy such as wind and solar power are getting cheaper and more effective.
The key to preventing news overwhelm is be aware of how our brains work, but it can also simply by switching off the news, put your phone's on airplane mode and get out into nature, meditate, embrace flow states, sleep like your life depends upon it (it does!). embrace active recovery protocols and remove from your life people, places, commitments, habits and thoughts that drain you of energy. My baseline survey is a great place to start this process.
If this sounds interesting and you want to seek abundance in your life, email me at al@49.consulting and we can see how I could help.
Find flow to grow,
Al
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