An Article in the National Examiner reports how having a simpler life style contributes to greater happiness. The article also indicates how the drive for material wealth is contributing to stress and ultimately increased depression in our society as evidenced by the volume of prescriptions for anti-depressants.
“Kasser also writes that people become more materialistic when they feel insecure about losing their safety and security and their perceived likelihood of satisfying their psychological needs. “For example,” writes Kasser, “children’s materialism is higher when they grow up in a family with a cold, controlling mother, when their parent’s divorce, and when they experience poverty.””
This lack of a sense of security is our emotional baggage and it come from our emotional conditioning, which are the things that happen to us in childhood. We try to make up for this lack of security by wanting more things and more success. What is missing is our own sense of security, which actually comes from inside of us. We don’t have full access to our own sense of security because it is lost among our emotional baggage. Empty out the emotional baggage and we feel more secure.
The alternative is more depression and stress related illnesses which are becoming a major concern in America. A major cause of lost work time is due to stress related illnesses. Stress related illnesses are costing companies millions of dollars and ultimately we are ruining our health. Our emotional conditioning has a huge impact on our health as discussed in Has Emotional Conditioning Impacted your Health? We can see from the statics reported below that our lack of mental and emotional health is a growing problem which adversely impacts productivity in business, the happiness in our lives and ultimately the environment.
“Dr. Mark Olfson of Columbia University in New York and Steven Marcus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia wrote in the Archives of General Psychiatry 2009 reported Reuters that “About 6 percent of people were prescribed an antidepressant in 1996 — 13 million people. This rose to more than 10 percent or 27 million people by 2005, the researchers found.More than 164 million prescriptions were written in 2008 for antidepressants, totaling $9.6 billion in U.S. sales, according to IMS Health. These drugs are deposited in America’s drinking systems, often without a way to filter them out even with current sewage treatment methods.”
Each of us needs to decide for ourselves do we take drugs to manage our accumulated emotional baggage or do we empty the baggage out and live a happier, healthier life. The choice is yours.
