Seeking peace and joy? – Is it still Black Tuesday?

THIS IS NO TIME TO PANIC—AND SOME OTHER  WELL-MEANING MOUTHFULSToday marks the  90th  anniversary  of BLACK TUESDAY—the day the stock market crashed, the banks started to close and the “Great Depression” (quite possibly.history’s most insulting oxymoron) took  hold of the nation’s and the world’s economy.  So when did it end?  Not yet—I would argue—not yet.

The “depression narrative became the  life story for our grandparents, their  parents, and many of their  children.  In so many ways it kicked off a narrative where an individual could never get enough security, never protect enough wealth, never  fully trust government, and that’s just for starters.  Not much more. Than a generation. Ago, employers and employees  alike were determined to have. 20 or 30 year careers as a norm.  Employees were engaged in their. Workplace because  their was not an expectation of  many job changes, if any at all.  

So you say...”that’s just not true anymore.”  I’d say....”of course it’s not—you are right”. However, ask almost any parent what they would want for their. Children in terms of  a career and life and they would  most likely say they want their kids to find. A job they love and can hold on to—one with benefits, a great life partner, a healthy existence, and a nice family.  

In short the “depression” led to a fairly common social narrative that rolls on even though most. Adults today, and practically any youth will tell you “that’s  not things are  today.”  

So what’s all this have to do with  seeking peace and joy?   Well...I don’t usually say this...but it’s simple.   Seeking peace and joy includes growing  your  ability to craft, adopt, and pursue your own personal narrative.  Until quite  recently any individual had only about three narratives to use as 

prototypes.  There is/was the “haves and haves mores—the haves enough, but won’t ever be a have more—and the we don’t have enough because...and most people  didn’t have too many problems falling into  their  chosen or prescribed cultural spots.  Now, however,  you probably. Have an entire  society that falls into  one of four narratives that are much different from those, and far more difficult to construct a life narrative around.  I see out there these four:

1. I have  a lot and I am entitled to it—pleacse don’t change the universe now.
2. The “I’m next in line and I’ll learn some things and get mine..narrative
3. The “I’m different than “those  people and I will fight to get mine”  Narrative
1. The “none of this really makes sense, I’m. A bit lost, and I am afraid to do much of anything” narrative

The challenge is  clear (or at least to me).  All the new narratives divide people up  a bit differently and each comes with a free truckload of anxiety.  

What’s more set against the backdrop of the depression this task of being  able to or having to create a new personal narrative is pretty jarring.  It requires skills that are schools didn’t (and still do not) teach.  We are still teaching people to by satisfied industrial factory workers sprinkled with a few administrators and even fewer le3aders.  We  have a generation of people. Growing older  who need  to be social networking,  flexible, problem-solving machines, but we are  only teaching the “machines” part.  ThaThat leaves us. On our own to.  Find a narrative  that encompasses flexible problem solving in order to approach the world in a peaceful way.  

So this is. Where it stands  right now.  

The depression set a social narrative that  still influences much of out range of  tools for forming our. Current personal narrative.  That. Narrative doesn’t really work anymore although it still influences many beliefs and changing. It rewquires  anxiety provoking change.  We are are, around the world, faced with the task of creating our. Own new dominant narrative that may not come.  At the national level.  We may have to build it at the.indivdual, family, or community level instead and we will each have to take an active role in  creating our own.  So we have a brick wall of anxiety. Blocking our search for peace and joy.  

What do we do?   —Read tomorrow for ideas...

For now relax you know the whole world is going through this (if you care about. What others are doing and thinking)...I know, I know...in the whole history of  helping people relax—telling  someone to relax has never  worked—so till tomorrow simply ask yourself “what is my “Great Depression?”  Now.....