Culture

I shared a message recently around the idea of singleness being good. And marriage being good too. The idea was to really put the value back on singleness and to deal with the cultural romantic idol we have that meeting the right person will somehow complete us. That when we get married, life will begin and all be lived happily ever after.

The internet is a wonderful place and full of wonderful ideas. It’s also a strange place and full of strange ideas. One such idea surfaced recently from the Instagram feed of animal right activist group, PETA which highlighted the concept Speciesism and attracted a certain amount of attention.

Excess often has a delayed reaction. Think of those moments where you very slightly over indulge - a delicious Sunday roast in Shoreditch, finishing the chocolate eclairs at the park that the kids half-touched or downing the last of the milk because you’re going away on holiday.

Cue 30 minutes later or so and you’re normally regretting the decision you made. Because life is all about balance.

Comfort has become something of a secular god in recent times. Its perhaps better marketed twin, happiness, is frequently stated (by people who I often admire) as the ultimate goal in life. Find your passion, find what makes you happy and go make your dreams happen etc.

But I do find this line of thinking to be somewhat limiting. Because all of us know deep down that happiness is forever fleeting and is so often here one moment and gone in the next.

Today the world is full of statistics, trends, analyses and conclusions. Now more than ever we are being bombarded with data around the current health crisis such as infections, death rates, economic impact and recession.

One thing has become clear though, that even accurate data can be bent out of shape through the context it is given. It’s not just what is being presented but what is not being presented that taints the claims of truth being made.

It’s fair to say that these are interesting times. Within the space of a few weeks (and even more so days), our experience of life as we know it is drastically changing. The coronavirus is affecting absolutely everything, from the health implications all the way to economic uncertainty, mental health, community and so on.

The question now is of course, what do we do? Whilst much of the news is (probably rightly so) devoted to the more serious side of what is happening, I wanted to pull apart the other side of things. Because in every crisis there is a silver lining. Multiple in fact. To acknowledge that isn’t to downplay the severity of what is occurring right now across the world but simply to point our eyes in a different direction.

Often when we think about mental health, we may conjure up images of perhaps the more negative side of the mind such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders or many other things. But having a healthy mind is not just as narrow as overcoming certain issues but is all about the way in which we interact with the world on a daily basis. If physical health is full of nuance, growth, learning and development then so is our journey of mental health.

Saying no is difficult in the world we live in. People are asking of our attention, our time, our resource and so on at increasing rates. It’s human nature to want to say yes and there is an underlying fear in the workplace and generally throughout life of being someone who is unreasonable.

We don’t want to offend people but ultimately the end result of overcommitting is that dreaded combination of over-promising and under-delivering. If you have an enthusiasm for new projects (like I do) then you may be particularly susceptible to this.

If you’re anything like me, then you feel slightly stressed, tired, stretched and at the limits of your life. Welcome to being a vaguely useful human being. Or adulting as the kids call it nowadays.

The pressures of life can weigh us down, keep us stuck in one place and make life truly miserable at times. However, I have come with alternative news in this blog post. I really do believe that pressure is a gift.

Possibly the most underrated quality in today’s world is faithfulness. We tend to under-appreciate those who remain most consistent, simply for virtue of the fact that they are always there.

They’re the people who rock up when no one else does. They’re the people who you don’t have to chase. They’re the people who you just get used to relying on. They’re low maintenance, frequently high capacity with a lot to offer and often go unnoticed.