Saturday Night Owls: When the future feels hopeless, we aren't helpless to change our mindset
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Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week Arthur C. Brooks at The Atlantic writes—What to Do When the Future Feels Hopeless. Humans like to feel optimistic about and in control of where their life is headed. The pandemic haSaturday Night Owls: When the future feels hopeless, we aren't helpless to change our mindset
Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week Arthur C. Brooks at The Atlantic writes—What to Do When the Future Feels Hopeless. Humans like to feel optimistic about and in control of where their life is headed. The pandemic has made it very hard to feel that way: [...] Because of the pandemic, the future feels difficult and uncertain, and few of us have much control over it, beyond doing our best to keep ourselves and those around us safe. [...] Gallup survey data show that pessimism about the future of the pandemic in the U.S. is rising. This is infecting our general outlook: “I wake up every day with nothing to look forward to,” a friend recently confessed to me. “I feel like staying in bed.” We make light of pessimism, even creating amusing pessimistic characters, such as Eeyore and Charlie Brown. But in real life, pessimism is no laughing matter. Research shows that it is highly correlated with suicide. Young adults who are pessimistic are disproportionately likely to suffer poor health in middle age. Similarly, scholars have shown that having a sense of low personal control links adverse economic circumstances to poor health and impaired emotional functioning. Low personal control in the workplace—called low decision latitude by psychologists—especially in combination with high pressure, was found to be a significant predictor of depression and low job satisfaction among workers in one 1990 study. [...] Read more