Part 3 – What we can do
There is a global infectious disease that most of us have experienced, but very few understand. According to Alvin Toffler who first identified this disease,
“It will not be found in the Index Medicus or any list of psychological disorders. However, unless intelligent steps are taken to combat it, millions of people will find themselves increasingly disoriented, progressively unable to deal rationally with their environment. The malaise, mass neurosis, irrationality and free violence already evident in modern life is just a foretaste of what may await us unless we understand and cure this disease.”
Most healthcare professionals see the effects of this disease in their practices. Most people suffer from it themselves but don’t even know they are infected. It’s called “Future Shock” and the human species has been affected for a long time. Here’s how Toffler described this disease when he first wrote about it in 1965 in an article in Horizon magazine:
I coined the term ‘future shock’ to describe the devastating stress and disorientation we cause people by subjecting them to too many changes in too short a time.”
Toffler goes on to say in his book, Future Shock.
“It has become clear that future shock is no longer a distant potential risk, but a real disease from which more and more people are already suffering. This psychobiological condition can be described in medical and psychiatric terms. It’s the disease of change.”
I think we can all agree change of every kind has continued to accelerate since 1970, but we have not taken the “intelligent steps to combat it” that Toffler called us to address fifty-four years ago. Since then, there is another disease that we have not been able to deal with. In addition to the disease of change, we are experiencing a disease of complexity.
The latter problem was described by Rebecca Costa in her book, The Watchman’s Rattle: A Radical New Theory of Collapse published in 2010. He examined complex cultures around the world and described what happens when our human brains are unable to handle the complexity of society.
Costa looked at past civilizations that had collapsed from the Maya to the Roman Empire to see what we could learn that would help us deal with our current civilization and predict whether we are headed for collapse. He found several early warning signs, including:
1. Lock. Like a major traffic jam, major parts of the system fail to function.
“A culture insists on developing methods that were once used to solve smaller, simpler problems to solve larger, more complex issues. Even though these methods repeatedly fail, like a swimmer caught in a mudflat, we persistently pursue variations of the same failed solutions decade after decade.”
2. Absurd Opposition.
“Irrational opposition occurs when the act of rejecting, criticizing, suppressing, ignoring, misleading, marginalizing, and resisting rational solutions becomes the accepted norm.”
3. The personalization of responsibility.
“Throughout history, cultures have had a clear pattern of placing responsibility for complex problems on the shoulders of individuals whenever complex problems persist.”
4. Silo Thinking. “Silo thinks,” says Costa,
“It is fragmented thinking and behavior that prohibits the collaboration needed to tackle complex problems. Rather than fostering collaboration among individuals and groups who share a common goal, silo thinking breeds undermining, competition, and division.”
5. Extreme Economics.
“When simple principles in business, such as risk/reward and profit/loss, become the touchstone for determining the value of people and priorities, initiatives and institutions.”
While many hoped, and continue to hope, that with enough education and foresight we can avoid the collapse that so many previous civilizations have experienced, it is increasingly recognized that we have passed the point of no return. Humans have so disrupted many of our human life support systems that collapse is inevitable.
World-renowned biologist EO Wilson sums up the human dilemma.
“The real problem with humanity is that we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and God-like technology. We are a confused, and in many ways, an archaic species in transition.”
Although health professionals and the general public may not be aware of this future shock and diseases of change and complexity, we all know stress problems. In his book, Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety, Joseph LeDoux says,
“Collective fear and anxiety disorders are the most prevalent of all psychiatric problems in the United States, affecting approximately twenty percent of the population with an associated economic cost estimated to exceed $40 billion annually.”
Judson Brewer, MD, PhD, author of Relax Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind says,
“Stress is everywhere. It always was. But in recent years, it has come to dominate our lives in a way that perhaps it never has before.”
Dr. Wendy Suzuki is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the Center for Neuroscience at New York University and a renowned international authority on neuroplasticity. In her book, Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion, she says,
“We live in a time of stress. Like a ubiquitous, noxious odor to which we have grown accustomed, stress has become a constant state, a fact of life on this planet. From global pandemics to collapsing economies to intense, day-to-day family challenges, we have many legitimate reasons to feel anxious.”
It is clear that healthcare professionals are not only not immune to these problems, but we may actually be at higher risk because of who we are, where and how we work, and feel a professional responsibility to help those in need. We may need special support communities to help keep ourselves healthy so we can help others.
In her powerful and hopeful book, Who Do We Choose To Be? Facing reality, claiming leadership and restoring sanity, Cultural traveler and author Margaret Wheatley says,
“My ambition is that you see clearly to act wisely. If we don’t know where we are, if we don’t know what to prepare for, then whichever path we choose will make us wander in the desert, more and more desperate, more and more lost.”
As someone who has worked as a health professional for over fifty years, I have come to realize that we will continue to undermine our health if we act like “lone rangers” struggling to change things on our own. Either we become as dysfunctional as the systems we are trying to change or our own mental, emotional and relational health is compromised.
Margaret Wheately has an answer that I have found to be workable and effective.
“As leaders committed to serving the causes and people we treasure, faced with this relentless tsunami, what are we to do?” says Wheatley. My answer to this is also stated with absolute certainty: We must restore reason by awakening the human spirit. We can only achieve this if we undertake the most demanding and essential work of our leaders’ lives: the creation of the Islands of the Soul.”
He goes on to say,
“The Island of Sanity is a gift of possibility and refuge created by the commitment of people to form healthy community to do meaningful work. It requires rational leaders with unwavering faith in the innate generosity, creativity and goodness of people.”
In her new book, Restoring Sanity: Practices for Awakening Generosity, Creativity, and Kindness in Ourselves and Our Organizations, offers guidance and practical wisdom for creating and maintaining islands of sanity. I created my own Island of Sanity in 1979 when I joined a men’s group. We started as seven guys committed to supporting each other so we could do the work we knew was important in the world while staying sane. I wrote about our experiences in an article “Til Death Do Us Part: The Life and Times of My 45-Year-Old Men’s Group.”
If you would like to know more about my books, training programs, and current thinking, you can contact me at MenAlive.com.
