Why are our lives becoming more flooded with stress? Because stress is amongst the intensive emotions used to draw attention. Recall, for example, how many pieces of news on TV or newspapers have related good news rather than bad ones? Barely 2%. We can then assume that the outer world is designed to stress us out, and not to help us relieve ourselves from daily burdens.
I was somehow amazed by how even some people can be afforded all means of comfort and sumptuousness and yet still feel depressed and stressed? Thus all what we are seeking from this life, from possessing a big house and a fancy car to setting up a profitable business for the sake of living more happily is a terrible phantasm.
In this blog post, I have tried to list some sources of negative feelings in a pragmatic standpoint.
The world is designed to stress you out
Stress and depression are benefiting the economy. Recent studies have related that when you are unhappy, you can cheer yourself up by eating or buying something. In one experiment with 45 female undergraduates, 44% bought a snack after watching a movie clip showing a bullying incident.
The world is increasingly designed to depress us. Happiness and relief are not very good for the economy. If we were happy with what we had, why would we need more? How do you sell an anti-ageing moisturiser? You make someone worry about ageing. How do you get people to buy insurances? You make them worry about everything. How do you get them to have plastic surgery? By highlighting their physical flaws. How do you get them to watch a TV show? By making them worry about missing out. How do you get them to buy a new smartphone? By making them feel like they are being left behind. To be calm becomes a kind of revolutionary act. To be happy with your own non-upgraded existence. To be comfortable with our messy, human selves, would not be good for business. - Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive -
Perhaps it is part of the reason why most religions urge its practitioners to asceticism. Most of them are claiming to have an ultimate reason for being far from simple materialistic whims and meaningless trivia.
Worrying about too many things!
This same reflection was emphasized in Mark Manson’s outstanding book : “The subtle art of not giving a f***”. It contains a counterintuitive approach to living a good life. When you give a f*** about too many things, you’ll feel that you perpetually entitled to be comfortable and happy at all times, that everything is supposed to be just exactly the fucking way you want it to be. And that is a sickness!
And therefore, ...
You’ll see adversity as injustice, every challenge as a failure, every disagreement as a betrayal. You’ll be confined inside your own of hell, burning with entitlement and running circles around your very own personal Feedback Loop from Hell. - Mark Manson -
More attention will be drawn to exclusively investigate this book in the upcoming posts.
The vicious cycle of stress and low self-esteem
The relationship between stress and self-esteem is one that is inextricably linked. Low self-esteem can lead to psychological effects that cause a person to be more susceptible to stressful situations. Consistent stress can gradually lessen a healthy self-esteem over time as well. Conversely, high self-esteem can act as a sort of protection against high levels of stress, and a context of low-stress can provide a great environment for individuals who could benefit from a higher self-esteem.
A large determinant of the level of stress is not just the actual facts of a situation, but the individual’sperceptionof his or her situation, of their own abilities, skills and overall qualities that guide his or her behavior.
Another aspect of the connection between stress and self-esteem is that a lack of assertiveness is one of the common effects of a lower self-esteem. This can turn into a vicious cycle in which low self-esteem leads a person to accept more work than he or she can truly handle. This, in turn, causes increased stress. Self-esteem and stress can form a harmful feedback cycle in such cases.
This interaction between self-esteem and stress is often more dramatic and destructive in people with lower self-esteem. Such individuals tend to feel helpless, powerless and incapable of overcoming the obstacles placed in front of them. These feelings make any task seem more arduous and can cause even routine challenges to appear impossible.
In the upcoming blog posts, I will dissect each aspect in a broader view.
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