The World Health Organization recently released a report stating
Depression is the leading cause of ill health and disability worldwide.
The report discusses treatment and the costs of non-treatment, but not the cause. I am especially interested to know why so many people (over 300 million, according to WHO) world-wide are so unhappy. I have some ideas.
Overpopulation, war, poverty, social change, and social injustice are bearing down on us all at once, and we all are experiencing the pain of violent change.
Human society is in a state of transition, and such transition always brings with it painful upheaval in every area of life. It is hard for people to find safety anywhere any more, and the poorest people are without most of life’s necessities. The privileged few are orchestrating a backlash against recent progressive social change, and only making things worse. Is it any wonder that so many people feel stressed and anxious, even depressed? It probably seems unlikely to them that they will find any relief in their lifetimes.
This may be so, but we are living in this time, and must make of it what we can. In spite of our suffering, it is important to take what we are given and do the best we can with it so that the world will move ahead.
Now is the time especially for Wiccans and other Pagans to use their skills in turning to turn the bad into the good, or if not good, at least better. If we can take the suboptimal circumstances we find today and use them to better ends, perhaps tomorrow will become a more just and happy day for all of us. May God give us strength.
Copyright © 2017 Teresa Chupp. All rights reserved.
