To think that most people's problems are due to too much or too little time

[CarrotJanice]

Not sure how to explain it.
Friend with depression who is unable to work, lots of time to ruminate and go over what could have been/ what went wrong in her head.
Me, constantly feeling stressed, feeling like I'm failing at everything, making mistakes as I can't hold everything and there's just one of me I.e. getting a cleaner can't help as I need to clear stuff and sell stuff etc.

Maybe we were happier when we all had even work responsibilities and lives were more similar e.g. all worked in farming. But then did that time ever exist?

There was no social media years ago, so less people to compare to.

More broadly, a little adversity is good for us, too little or too much is pretty terrible.

I thought similar about stress levels. Too much and you want to drive into a ditch on a Monday morning. Too little and you feel low, no purpose, bored, no energy and in my case causes anxiety and depression.

You’re right.

Social media does NOT help

I must admit I do feel better mentally when I'm busy - like I have purpose or have achieved something. Too much relaxation is actually stressful. But having too much to do, such that it's overwhelming make me feel equally bad.

I think it just the lack of family and community. We evolved as social mammals to live in multi-generational groups. Without that support, we struggle.

No I don’t think so, not for the most part. Sometimes too much/ too little time exacerbates problems, but is not often the actual cause.

You feeling stressed over not getting everything done for example, is the real issue that your partner/ people you live with don’t pull their weight? Or are your expectations of yourself unrealistic? Is your work/ life balance not good?

As for your friend with depression, it’s an illness that sparks a vicious cycle i.e. it starts to set in so people have less motivation and ability to do things, which makes them more depressed and so on. Your friend needs professional help, not less time to think. Sure wallowing never helps, and less busy people have more time to wallow. But if it is actual depression you can find time to wallow no matter how busy you are as you cannot help it. I know I’ve been there.

I agree with caveats including effects of social media and other things in modern life.

I think a great life skill to have is to recognise the amount of busyness, responsibility etc that works for you.

Im on the low side and can panic easily if I have too much to do, whereas others I know need to have a bit of panic to have the energy, motivation to get stuff done.

When I was a school mum it seemed to me that a lot of the other mums had good life balances, but then they would do something like get a job, maybe part time, a new puppy, sign up for courses, volunteer etc. it seemed to me at that time that they had made their life more difficult.

But I’m not them and they probably were doing the right thing for them.

At the moment I’m in a stage of life like your friend. But I recognise it’s not good for me and I am working on it.

I don't know, being stalked by my abusive ex wasn't really time related

I have periods of very poor mental health and these strike whether I'm busy or not.

When I'm skint that's not time related either as I work full time so

Just to say that I don't think people with depression should be forced to be busy, but that staying at home isn't good either. Just as it's not good to be overly stressed. I just wonder when our lives had more balance. I can put most people I know broadly into either having too much time or too little. MH meaning people are being paid just enough to stay home but not enough (or adequate support) to have any great quality of life. It's not great, same with the elderly who have retired early. When you're not well off, 30 years of retirement must be quite difficult, especially if no family live near.

I used to work in a Magistrates’ Court and nearly every low level offender (shoplifting, minor drugs, public order offences) didn’t and/or hadn’t ever worked and claimed they had depression. I say claimed not to disparage but because I often wondered if it was a chicken and egg situation. No purpose so low self esteem, diagnosed as depression as no motivation, leading to drug or alcohol misuse and petty crime to fund it. And round and round.

People have always had mental health issues (and taken their own lives) but I suppose it’s likely that social media and the pace and complexity of modern living all exacerbate the issues.

I think this is a bit of a simplistic perspective and there are tons of other things which can make people unhappy. But I would agree that people who have no sense of purpose in their lives are more likely to be depressed, aimless etc and succumb to self-destructive behaviours.

I've never envied people who are rich enough that they don't need to work: I've known people like this in the past and I think it's a real curse. Work doesn't on its own provide purpose, and there are other ways of finding fulfilment but I think if you never have the experience of having to establish yourself and your ability to provide for yourself and do something to a degree of competence it's really hard to have any self-respect. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. At the other end of the scale, long term unemployment also sounds miserable.

As for overwork: I'm a bit of a workaholic and I'd always far rather have too much work than not enough so maybe this has coloured my perspective on this but for me if your work is interesting and you're respected and reasonably well paid having a lot of work isn't a problem. The problem comes when work is dull, repetitive and you aren't treated with dignity. I appreciate this isn't everyone's view.

expectations... most woes arise from unrealistic expectations.

"I should be able to do this, easily. Something is wrong with me if I can't!"

"I expect he'll be nicer husband if I'm just nice to him"

"My gran can't die! I never expected her to die!"

etc.