Three lessons from Obama
I was lucky enough to be one of the thousands of people who got to see President Obama speak in Glasgow last night. He was charismatic, statesmanlike and a lot of what he said has really stuck with me. He was reflecting on what he’s learned from a lifelong career in making positive change, and advice he would give to the rest of us. I thought it would be good to share some of that here, particularly where it intersects with mental health.
Connect with other humans
Connecting with people is vitally important and it’s ultimately what he need as human beings. We can’t make it without other humans. As tempting as it can be to hide away, get out of the house, be yourself and spend time around other people. Human beings are also never just the one thing, no matter how handy that might be for a particular narrative. We contain multitudes and we have more in common as human beings than divide us. Be open to discovering that.
Ditch the doomscrolling
The internet had amazing promise in the beginning as a tool for truth and bringing people together but right now it’s a different animal. Everything is purposely rigged to keep our eyeballs glued to it and the easiest way of doing that is by upsetting us.
Social media in particular, he feels, isn’t healthy for us. The nature of the algorithm focuses on upsetting us , creating echo chambers, and reinforcing the divide between the ‘we’ and the ‘not we’ instead of bringing us together. That makes it easier for the people in control of it, almost always older white men, to cling on to power instead of getting out the way and letting the younger generation make things better.
Meeting other human beings and being around other human beings is ultimately better for us than a diet of news and social media.
Choose hope
Despite the challenges we face, hope is a choice we can make and an important one. He described it almost as something like faith; something we can choose to believe in. Instead of throwing our hands in the air and saying “we can’t do it so why bother?”, do what we can do. We’re not likely to reduce global warning to the level we need to prevent disaster, but if it’s even part of the way there, it’s better than doing nothing and that small difference can mean millions of lives are saved.
The small positive acts we choose to make every day contribute to making our world better as part of a collective effort. Despite it feeling like things are going backwards at times, history shows us that the overall trend is that things do get better and will get better. Believing in hope can keep us going when things seem dark.
If you’d like to work with a BACP accredited counsellor on your mental health, you can get in touch with me via the website or directly at mckellar.scott@gmail.com
