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?

Hello are you me?

I cope like this OP: reminding myself that the past was not at all a delightful place to live (PPs have given excellent examples of this).

And for my own sanity: by not dwelling on it, and by being defiant. I see the mountains of plastic waste others throw around on the streets? Well fuck them, I'm going to keep on recycling. I read about a terrorist attack? Well fuck that, I'm going to give extra money to the latest school fundraiser. I read an awful story in the paper about war atrocities? Well I'm going to do something nice for my neighbour.

Call me naive, I probably am, but even in the midst of feeling swamped by it all I know that there are things I can do. I don't care how tiny they are and how futile they might be in the face of all the other stuff going on, but that's what I can do and I won't ever, ever give up. Fuck them all.

*I'm too young to remember really clearly how Thatcherism was

That's definitely your loss - it was fucking awesome!!*

Was it? I remember waking nearly every morning to news of another few thousand job losses. It's when we switched the clock radio so we woke to R3 not R4. Saved the bad news to when I was fully awake and could deal with it.

There’s always been bad stuff- 1914 ww1, 1930 Spanish civil war, 1940 ww2, 1950 Korean War, 1960 Biafra war, 1970 Vietnam war etc there’s always been bad stuff-it’s more in your face now. I would get your DCs into nature it is wonderful, show them a birds nest, point to a swallow and tell them they will fly all the way to Africa in ?sept to enjoy the summer there, make hedgehog gates in your fence, grow flowers for bees, make a butterfly chart there is plenty of amazing stuff around, it just gets swamped by the bad stuff nowadays.

I think you (we all) could genuinely appreciate what we do have, and what is good. Even if we think it could be better ..... because relatively speaking, it's usually better / more than others have and / or has been here.

That's not diminishing some of your concerns. I genuinely am concerned at the impacts Brexit will have - it won't be the end of the world, although it may well change some things in my life / my career etc. But unless I get myself voted in as an MP in the next few weeks, then there's probably a limit to how much I can directly influences events, so I'll have to trust that those involved will sort it out 😬
And I use that logic for a lot in life ..... not suggesting we all be slopey-shouldered and leave it for others, just that we need to work out which worries we can sort / influence ourselves, and which will be for others to resolve.

So, in that way i agree with the earlier advice to influence / change things in your sphere ...... you'll not be able to solve world poverty yourself overnight, but if you've got the funds yourself you could buy a little extra in your food-shop & donate to foodbanks. You'll not be able to eradicate crime everywhere, but you could maybe volunteer at a local youth group if you thought that would help.

At least we don't have Stalinist purges and the Holocaust OP Things are perhaps more transparent than they were, and politicians are held more to account.

Blair getting in was the knell of doom for me...no hope whatsoever, and nothing has changed my mind on that one, but things eventually changed.

What @seasawride said. Problems change but every generation has them. The 70s were appalling but we survived and bounced back. We’ll do it again.

Although I admit I’ve stopped reading American news because it makes me too cross.

@BossPeeBeePee

I remember the excitement when my parents could finally buy their house.

And now we have a shortage of social housing, so that worked out well for the country as a whole.

Anyway, I remember the miners strike and my mum donating tins of food, the closure of profitable mines and the economic and social decline of the South Wales valleys.