We live in a part of the world that really has little experience with true poverty. Even most of our so called poor people have no idea just how low things can go, where literally all they have are the dirty, torn clothes on their back, no shoes, no money, no food, no shelter, and starving.
Even the homeless in North America are better off than many people in South Asia and Africa. They usually have blankets, odds and ends they've gathered, and places to go where they can get food and medical attention.
We are spoiled. And like all spoiled children, we want what we want when we want it. The don't want to hear about the future getting worse. Right now the price of gas is so high that they can't afford to commute to work for an hour every day in their monster truck. Life is so hard! They might have to take a bus! Or move closer to where they work, and live in a neighbourhood that has non-white people in it!
It seems that a lot of people are cycling through the early stages of grief: shock, denial, pain, anger, bargaining, depression, and then cycling back to denial. Part of this is that many of us are raised without ever learning to deal with real loss. And even those that are able to get past the depression and work towards acceptance, the piling on of new traumas before having dealt with the prior ones quickly sends them back to the beginning of the cycle. And the whole problem just seems to get bigger and bigger. For many, denial is a coping mechanism until confronted with unavoidable problems. (See this article for an example of that: https://medium.com/@alan-12169/in-10-years-australia-will-decide-the-fate-of-our-planet-47f5c007e9c).
In the past three years we have had:
- Covid-19
- Supply chain disruptions
- Jobs disappearing
- Stock market declines
- Social distancing, masking, and generally avoiding friends and family
- Death of relatives and friends
- Droughts and heat
- Flooding
- Interruptions to electrical power
- Massive fires
And that's not all of it. No wonder some of the childish and spoiled are having challenges dealing with the stress.
Great article Teresa!
I wish you well.
