Sharing – What 85 years of research says is the real key to happiness
If we want a happier world, we need to stop finding reasons to avoid people and find ways to connect with people, even those who are not like us.
If we want a happier world, we need to stop finding reasons to avoid people and find ways to connect with people, even those who are not like us.
The question isn’t just about making therapy available to more people, though that is important. It’s also about eliminating the environmental factors that cause harm to our mental health. Those will vary depending on where we live. What works in Louisiana is not what works in New York. What is needed here is different because the environment is different.
Most of all, can we even see the issues as they apply to different places? If we can’t see that, how do we see the problems faced by any individual?
I’m going to let you all in on my secret. I rarely feel like I have it all together. I know many of you are in the same boat. We go to work and pretend like we do, and maybe this is why we all feel like we have impostor syndrome, too, because we don’t always feel the same as the other people who always have it together.
I bet you can think of two or three people you interact with every week that you consider to have it all together. I’d also bet that if we could get inside their minds, they don’t feel like they do, just like the rest of us.
The point I want to make is not that social media is perfectly safe. I want us to understand that it is nuanced, and the impact on any one kid is undetermined. We know that kids with strong connections are safer and have better mental health. Instead of assuming that we’ve solved the youth mental health issue by blocking social media, let’s make sure our kids have the kind of community that helps rather than harms their mental health.
For more like this, subscribe to the newsletter and get everything I’ve been sharing in your email.
Navigating the online world takes some skill, but getting it right can provide significant benefits to our sense of belonging, community, and act as a decent accessory to our offline relationships.
Just be careful not to get into communities that do the opposite, and leave them quickly when that becomes clear.