Take a deep breath, things are better than they seem

JUDITH ANCER

Before we ask if this crisis is real or imagined, we must acknowledge the broader issues that are troubling so many people. Worldwide, people are worried about an increase in authoritarian nationalism, xenophobia (and anti-Semitism), global terror, environmental damage, financial stressors, debt burdens, and difficulties in accessing studies and jobs, plus the diminishment of community life. Right now, there’s even Covid-19, the psychological impact of which might be as damaging as the virus itself.

Meanwhile, at an everyday level, people feel rushed, pressured, and vulnerable, competing ever harder for slices of the same-sized cake. This is a lonely struggle because we have also lost faith. Not necessarily just in religious bodies, but also in institutions like governments, large corporations and civic bodies, and the people who run them. Perhaps we even believe that things were way better in the past, that we could rely more on those institutions and leaders of yesteryear.

As the lyrics from a 2015 song by Twenty One Pilots go, “Wish we could turn back time, to the good old days/When our momma sang us to sleep but now we’re stressed out.”

But this is where we must beware our own mythology. We have a tendency to make a number of significant and fairly predictable errors in our thinking when we feel uncertain. These cognitive errors are well elaborated in Hans Rosling’s 2018 book, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think. We exaggerate, seeing the world in extreme ways, engaging in all or nothing thinking, veering between excessive pessimism and unrealistic optimism, idealising the past and catastrophising the future.

If we have secure attachment figures like adult caregivers who protect us from predation and harm, keep us close, sing us to sleep, and tell us “everything’s going to be OK”, then we feel safe. If our leaders are trustworthy, our sense of security is further enhanced. We can focus on the tasks of growing up, and being in the world.

But what happens when our trust in adults, in our parents and leaders, is shaken? If they are unreliable or unpredictable, we develop insecure attachments, and feel unsafe in the world. We over-anticipate danger, need to be constantly vigilant against threat, and are unable to be wholeheartedly in the world.

Yet, I doubt that parents and decision makers were, in general, more trustworthy in the past, or that governments weren’t as corrupt, or evil people weren’t in our midst. Instead, information overload and the speed of communication have made us intensely aware of every instance of wrongdoing everywhere in the world, with every human frailty exposed for all to see. Yesterday’s conspiracies of silence no longer insulate us from private sins. Social media often tears away the fabric of society, undermining the belief in a common good and a common human project.

In spite of this, perhaps the world has not changed so much. Perhaps it’s our attitude that has changed. While there are new and old problems, we seem to have forgotten that we no longer have wars that kill 80 million people in seven years. Extreme poverty has fallen by half since 1990. Many aspects of life on earth are getting dramatically better: child mortality is decreasing, life expectancy is increasing in most poor and rich countries, and the average years of schooling and literacy are rapidly increasing.

Cognitive scientist Steven Pinker warns that the factually incorrect belief that the past was better and that life is getting worse has its own dangers. He believes that it encourages voters to elect unproven leaders, often authoritarian or dictatorial in nature, whom we hope will make us feel safe in the face of our fears. Pessimism can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. By believing that the world is getting worse, Pinker argues, we can unintentionally make it so.

There are, however, some useful ways to manage our pessimism and anxiety.

First, we must change the negative circumstances of our lives if we are able to, seek help, and take reasonable actions where we can.

Once those are sorted, here are other useful strategies:

•     Adopt a fact-based worldview. Some facts are worrying, but most aren’t. Read Rosling and Pinker, and see what you think and feel then;

•     Remember that the adults in the room were always flawed; the past wasn’t necessarily better, and was often worse for more people;

•     Rosling says we should aim to be “possibilists”. A pessimist thinks life will get worse, an optimist thinks life will get better. Both are routinely disappointed. However, a possibilist “neither hopes without reason, nor fears without reason [and] constantly resists the overdramatic worldview”. A possibilist pays careful attention to the facts, and sees that improvement is possible;

•     Live with balance and thoughtfulness, compassion and pragmatism;

•     Be aware of the beauty, meaning, and hope in each moment. As neuroscientist Sam Harris says, “The reality of life is always now. To realise this … is liberating.”

Judith Ancer is a clinical psychologist in practice in Johannesburg. She will be speaking at the Jewish Literary Festival at the Gardens Community Centre in Cape Town on Sunday 15 March about “Negotiating minefields and dodging bullets – narcissists and psychopaths in the workplace”, and talking to Dr Anastacia Tomson about sex, gender, and identity.