To ask how people are coping with the direction humanity seems to be going in right now?

[aussiefishwife]

I have a history of anxiety, so I accept my view on events is coloured by this. But I'm finding it really hard not to get overwhelmingly worried about what has been happening / is happening in the UK, and all over the globe, and about the kind of future my kids will have. Global warming and environmental disasters, the rise of the far right, the destruction of the NHS, Brexit, the erosion of the welfare state, the extortionate cost of university education and that my kids will never be able to buy a house anywhere near where they grew up (possibly anywhere). 20 years ago we seemed to be going in the right direction. Now it seems to be getting more fucked up by the day. I'm trying to be optimistic but it's so bloody hard. I'm so angry that the world my kids are growing up in seems to be going backwards. How do I stop feeling this way?

Do something good to have a positive influence on the world!

Volunteer for a cause you’re passionate about. Challenge racist and bigoted views when you come across them. Buy extra food with your groceries for the food bank collection on the way out of the supermarket.

There’s a lot you can do. It helps with the hopelessness.

Be the change you wish to see and all that, instead of just getting caught up in anxiety and worry but not doing anything practical about it :£

I don't feel worried at all things change and evolve of course they do.
We just hear more about it now with fast access to news. In so many ways, things are much better for people. In my mums lifetime to mine... Far better.

I happily stick my head in the sand and just enjoy the simple pleasures. Ignorance is bliss and all that. I used to be pretty well informed before I had kids

As shitty as it sounds, you need to let go of feeling responsible for it all. Just focus on being the best influence you can be in your own sphere. Help who you can, where you can. Be kind and good to the people you see every day.

I do positive things, I really do. I do get that we now know more than we ever did instantly because of the internet, but it feels like the first time in my lifetime that things are getting worse. I'm too young to remember really clearly how Thatcherism was, but the Labour landslide happened as I was leaving university so I have amazing memories of feeling so hopeful. Every article I read about Brexit, and Trump, and all the others, destroys my soul just a little bit more!

I remember the 70s, and the wonderful sense that our generation were going to sort things out and make the world a better place. But at the same time older people were bemoaning the decline in all sorts of things. So I do wonder whether age comes into this, that the more things change from how they were in your formative years, the more you focus on the bad things and forget about the good.

The good things to try to remember are the change in views on the environment - we may have abandoned doing anything meaningful on climate change, but in the 60s no-one cared at all about the accelerating loss of the countryside and of ecological diversity- the acceptance of being gay, the acceptance that being racist is not a good thing, and the increasing belief that being bullied should not be a part of either school or working life.

Perhaps get some therapy OP as your level of anxiety is really not justified by current events.

The 70s and 80s were pretty awful OP. I have been very upset recently by the treatment of South American children on the border of America though so I get where you are coming from, OP. But my friend had a baby this week who 5 years ago would not have survived birth, there's also enormous good happening in the world.

Were we going in the right direction 20 years ago? I'm not in the UK, but I know in North America we'd had the Columbine Shooting (plus the many others), George W. Bush was elected, the first terrorist bombing of the World Trade Centers had happened, the Oklahoma City bombing had happened just 3 years before, the Rawandan genocide, etc etc. I know Canada was struggling with Universal healthcare, a recession, etc.

I think it's easy to say that things are worse now, because we have access to sooo much information and so many varying opinions at our fingertips, but I think, in reality, it's not much worse than its ever been.

My only real concern right now is the power the right has gained. I think we're looking at a major turn in international politics and alignment, and that will have lasting repercussions on economies, and in some places (the USA namely) on society.

I don't think we're all going to die in some horrid nuclear war anytime soon, but I might be in for a few decades of cursing at the TV.

I find current anti-refugee views incredibly depressing. I suppose it's got that way in Europe because the war in Syria has brought a refugee crisis to our shores that we simply aren't used to and people are frightened of anything different, but I find the dehumanisation of people fleeing from war and destruction to be soul-destroying. There but for the grace of God and all that - terrifying to know that if the worst should happen and you had to leave the security of your homeland other people might not want to offer you sanctuary.

Pity you don’t remember Thatcher! If more people did they wouldn’t have voted for Corbyn. Still another thread.

Op there are 13 little lads trapped in a cave in Thailand. Good people around the world will love heaven and earth to get them out somehow.

The 70s and 80s were no worse or better than today. Have you forgotten the 2 world wars I think a tad more worrying for people than we can even imagine.

We had the IRA, many other terrorist ground in Spain, Germany and even Holland killed many people. Not really different to today.

During terrorist attacks you witness the worst and the best of human nature.

Brexit will be fine. It’s hardly Armageddon.

People care more about the environment than they did. That’s good.

Do your best to be the best you can and raise kind kids..

And maybe get some counselling. Anxiety is a bitch.

In the 70s and 80s everyone was convinced we were going to destroy the world through nuclear warfare. Just look at the ‘popular culture’ of the era:

When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs
Terminator (the original and best)
Two Tribes by Frankie goes to Hollywood
99 Red Balloons
Russians by Sting

After that, we all thought ozone depletion would cause everyone to get skin cancer.

The world has got no worse. It is just different things to worry about.

Things i never stopped to consider so much20 years ago occupy a fair amount of thought now-i too have the same thoughts OP about humans place/impact on the planet..i find sanity by firstly practising gratitude(yes i may not own a house,but i have a roof over my head,enough food&choice over what i eat&dont live in a war-torn,disease ridden country and at least we can have an education-many things to be grateful for)& little things i feel contribute in some way to issues..volunteering,personal lifestyle changes(long-term vegetarianism&eco choices). Spending as much time as possible in nature experiencing weather with my DC is my own idea of heaven&reminds me of the bigger picture.

And this is why anyone who votes tory should hang their heads in shame.

Oh, and 20 years ago everyone was completely paranoid that every computer in the world was going to spontaneously combust on the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve 1999. Remember the ‘millennium bug’?

17 years ago we watched the World Trade Centers collapse, and the pentagon hit by a plane. I was sure WW3 was imminent. But here we are. It's more about rhetoric and the limiting of rights now then it is war.

I'm more concerned about my DD's growing up in a country were their rights have been fucked over to please a group of men who have made the word woman meaningless.

My grandmother remembers:

• school friends dying of polio
• not being able to afford warm clothes so using cardboard to keep warm when it snowed
• starting school being delayed because they had to build an air raid shelter in the playground
• her brother's stories of D Day
• smog so thick you couldn't see and couldn't breathe and would be sent home early from work
• rationing
• life before the NHS
• the assumption that because she was a working class girl university was not for her
• worrying that if the Nazis won the war her family would all be killed because they were Jewish

All before she turned 20. Go back another two generations and you have no vaccinations, an evens chance of your baby dying or you dying in childbirth, no understanding of the importance of cleanliness and clean water in preventing disease etc etc etc. Life has never been so healthy, so convenient, so easy in many ways. Take a long view and cheer yourself up.

Oh, put a sock in it creambun. It's remarks like that that make fence-sitters like me do exactly the opposite. Sanctimonious and entitled ....

And OP, I work on the premise that there's no point worrying myself to death over something I've no control over. Its better to use one's energy dealing with stuff you can influence/control.