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Don't get me wrong here. I hold a similar frame of reference towards my own mental state and my own thinking. But at the same time, it's important to recognize

Don't get me wrong here. I hold a similar frame of reference towards my own mental state and my own thinking. But at the same time, it's important to recognize that there's far to the story then this. Mental health is just as much rooted and so many other factors not in the least social and economic circumstances. This just half the story. The other half is actually the difficult part of addressing root causes. Such as growing up in a dysfunctional or abusive family situation. Or having a disposition towards addiction. Or being the butt of systemic discrimination i.e gender, physical appearance, disabilities, cultural background, skin colour, income level,... Sure, you could tell someone "the cause of your fatigue and latent depression is your 4 hour daily commute." but that's not something you can readily change if that individual doesn't have the affordances - degree, income, dependents,... - that allows them to either get a job closer to home or move closer to their job. Neither does it do to tell someone "Your lack of self-confidence and anxiety is a matter of stress management and lack of sleep" if they are under tremendous peer pressure compelling them to conform to particular culture or mentality at school, among friends, at work or at home which is at odds with their personality and who they are. The entire picture matters. My gripe with the article isn't that it dispenses advice in line with what you're saying - advice I wholeheartedly agree with in it's own right - my gripe is that the article simply doesn't even begin to address the complex reality that underpins mental health issues. Instead it deprecates entire fields of study because either "they don't know what they're talking about" and "it's been in stasis for decades now without any new insights" and then substitutes that by launching new concepts called "mental wealth" making bold claims about "investing" and "durability" rather then "fixing". Putting your shoes on, no thinking, start walking. I can get behind that. It helps to clear the air and get in the present moment. And I'm sure a part of the audience will take that advice and apply it tot heir own betterment. But it shouldn't detract from the real hard work up ahead.

bonoboTP 6y ago
I understand where you're coming from. I have similar thoughts when people try to blame individual choices for environmental issues, and put little pictograms and cute comics that teach you to always make sure not to leave taps running and other tiny tips that pale in relation to what effects industrial water use has. Putting the focus on the individual can result in forgetting another much bigger contributor. So I see that not just this article, but articles like this in general floating around half-assedly in public consciousness can create an atmosphere where the attitude is that everyone who is down there got there by their lack of will, by their corrupt soul, and deserve it etc. which seems to be a common framing in the US. I don't live in the US and I myself are pretty far from that framing and may be too blind to its bad effects. So by all means, fighting for political change and for creating a social net that catches people and bounces them back up is very important. But certainly in another sense, for a particular person it's a bad strategy to wait for others to pull them out of the mud. It may never happen. There are plenty of people who remain in that type of cycle, get all types of disease, die early etc. There won't be any dramatic music or moral lesson in the end, they just die with perhaps few people caring about even that fact. I like the quote "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." It's also similar to the Christian idea of Christ embracing the sinful and loves them in their humanity as they are right now, not only in some idealized version of them. Or the 12 step program for addicts, etc. If you take note of where you are, you can make a deliberate small move to where you want to be, instead of doing a random walk. Of course this only benefits you in some sense, but after a while it can expand and snowball to improvements for your family etc. The top-down solution and the bottom-up solution can and should coexist.

bonoboTP 6y ago

I understand where you're coming from. I have similar thoughts when people try to blame individual choices for environmental issues, and put little pictograms and cute comics that teach you to always make sure not to leave taps running and other tiny tips that pale in relation to what effects industrial water use has. Putting the focus on the individual can result in forgetting another much bigger contributor. So I see that not just this article, but articles like this in general floating around half-assedly in public consciousness can create an atmosphere where the attitude is that everyone who is down there got there by their lack of will, by their corrupt soul, and deserve it etc. which seems to be a common framing in the US. I don't live in the US and I myself are pretty far from that framing and may be too blind to its bad effects. So by all means, fighting for political change and for creating a social net that catches people and bounces them back up is very important. But certainly in another sense, for a particular person it's a bad strategy to wait for others to pull them out of the mud. It may never happen. There are plenty of people who remain in that type of cycle, get all types of disease, die early etc. There won't be any dramatic music or moral lesson in the end, they just die with perhaps few people caring about even that fact. I like the quote "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." It's also similar to the Christian idea of Christ embracing the sinful and loves them in their humanity as they are right now, not only in some idealized version of them. Or the 12 step program for addicts, etc. If you take note of where you are, you can make a deliberate small move to where you want to be, instead of doing a random walk. Of course this only benefits you in some sense, but after a while it can expand and snowball to improvements for your family etc. The top-down solution and the bottom-up solution can and should coexist.