Individual Well-being

Capitalist economies work on the basis of constant consumption. To keep the wheels of the economy turning people need to keep spending money. So, companies need to keep coming up with new things for us to buy, new fads and fashions, new technological gizmos and so on. Alongside this is the tendency for success in life to be measured in material terms – not just the size of one’s bank balance, but also signs of what has come to be known as ‘conspicuous consumption’. This involves displaying symbols of wealth and standing: expensive cars, designer clothes, being seen out in the most expensive restaurants, and so on. Of course, these two phenomena are not separate. This is because all this…

When people are described as ‘selfish’ there is usually an element of having a preference for receiving over giving. That is, they are seen as much more interested in taking than giving. In a very real sense, selfishness is the opposite of generosity. From a moral point of view, being regarded as generous would normally be perceived as better than being seen as selfish, giving as morally superior to taking. Indeed, much of the appeal of certain jobs will be down to the opportunity to give – jobs in health care, social services, education and so on. Making a contribution to others can give us a sense of satisfaction, can boost our self-esteem and even provide a sense of spiritual…

Life can happen in a blur if we let it. Doing things quickly can easily become the norm, adding extra – generally unnecessary – pressure to our already fairly pressurised lives. As is so often the case with life’s challenges, what can easily arise is a vicious circle that we can get trapped in. We feel under pressure so we do things quickly. Our lives then become less satisfying, so we try to squeeze more in (rather than relish what we already have); to fit more in we have to do things more quickly, and that makes us feel more pressurised. The more pressurised we feel, the greater the temptation to do things quickly. And there we are, locked in,…

Drift is the term used for when we become unfocused, when we lose sight of what we are doing or what we are trying to achieve. Ever gone upstairs and, when you get to the top of the staircase, you have no idea why you went upstairs; your mind is blank? That’s drift. Ever been on the way to a meeting, got distracted then found yourself wondering where it was you were going? That’s drift. But there are more serious versions of drift. For example, an important meeting can get bogged down in detail and lose track of what was supposed to be discussed. A worker can lose sight of what they are trying to achieve or what their role…

People who suffer from depression often feel as though nothing matters any more. It is as if life has become so difficult or painful that they just want to be cut off from it. And yet, ironically, it is generally because something we value – something that is really important to us – has been offended, undermined or even destroyed that people become depressed. This raises important issues about what we value, about what really matters to us. Values are often seen as abstract, and therefore disconnected from real life to a certain extent. However, seeing values that way is a big mistake, a very big mistake. This is because our values influence: Our thoughts What we think will, of…

We live in a society that seems to value youth (although not necessarily young people!). A fortune is spent on various ways of trying to make us look and feel younger. Whether or not that is money well spent is questionable, of course. Is it mainly another way of consumer capitalism getting us to spend our money? Well, it certainly fits with the idea that, if you want to make a lot of money, sell people things that they have to keep coming back for more of. Trying to hold back ageing is like Canute trying to hold back the tide. Wouldn’t it make far more sense to just accept that every day we create a new yesterday and therefore…

It is quite common for people to be rated according to how secure they are, especially people who are perceived to be low on any such rating scale – that is, people who are viewed as ‘insecure’. But what does it mean to refer to someone as ‘insecure’? Or as ‘secure’, for that matter? The world is a very insecure place, in the sense that, as the old saying goes, the only certainties are death and taxes. No one knows what is going to happen next. Our lives could potentially be turned upside down at any moment, with horrendous consequences. Disaster could be just round the corner. But it probably isn’t. Yes, it is true that many people will face…

Unfortunately, there is very strong tendency for many people to think in black and white terms – a sort of ‘all or nothing’ approach. It is as if there is a strong urge to assign things to one category or another. This is what I call either/or thinking. Others have referred to it as ‘binary’ thought. In reality, life is much more complex than that, and so either/or thinking prevents us from appreciating the subtleties of the situations we find ourselves in. It places a sort of straitjacket on our way of understanding whatever it is we are trying to make sense of. Of course, an important thing to recognise is that thought is so often the basis of action.…

Sadly, I have known several people who had various things they were keen to do when they retired, but died either before being able to retire or soon after they retired. What I learned from that is that I really must make space for the things I want to do and do them sooner rather than later. Putting all the eggs in the one basket of retirement is a risky strategy. But it isn’t just about retirement – the issue is broader than that. It is likely, for most of us, that there will be things that we are not putting on hold for retirement, but we are not getting round to them either. This is more than everyday procrastination…

Some you win, some you lose is a well-known saying. We can’t realistically expect to succeed in everything we do, so we have to learn to take the rough with the smooth, of course. However, my concern is that life can be so pressurised much of the time that we do not take the opportunity to savour those successes; we perhaps feel we are too busy to stop and focus on what has gone well because we are too busy rushing on to the next challenge or dealing with things that aren’t going so well. This is not just a pity to miss out on the positive feelings associated with success, it’s also a problem in at least two ways:…