Faulty Thinking Got Us Into This Mess

“I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.” (Arthur Rubinstein)

So true.

One of the worst mistakes people make is to approach life passively. “Life hasn’t shown me much. So what’s the point of taking risks or expending energy?” So they do the bare minimum, and wonder why they’re not happy. Or they opt to live off others (family, the government) and then wonder why they don’t feel self-confidence, self-respect or self-esteem.

The mental health and psychiatric industry (paired with the government-subsidized pharmaceutical industry) call it “depression.” What they mean by this is: People who are unhappy, to any degree or for any reason. What they also mean is: Only a PASSIVE response will help. Sit back and take your medication. What, it’s not helping? Don’t question the doctors who represent the pharmaceutical industry, who in turn represent our fascist government. And you’ll only get 5 minutes every four months with your psychiatrist anyway. Medicare or Medicaid will still reimburse him or her. So just shut the hell up.

I’m basing this on decades of having worked in the psychiatric industry, by the way. It’s not pretty.

And then there’s the snake oil, aside from the drugs. They tell you that “if only you listen to me, or read this book, your depression will evaporate.” Again, that’s passive.

Passivity does not work. If you’re a human being, you need an active attitude. If you’re depressed, you’re not suffering from the lack of a passive attitude; you’re suffering from the lack of an ACTIVE attitude. If you’re unwilling to adopt or practice an adaptive attitude, that’s your prerogative. There are plenty of people willing to pay your way, or pump you up with drugs that barely have an impact, if we’re (even for five seconds) honest about it.

But don’t say, “I’m a victim of depression” or “I suffer from depression” and then complain that passivity is doing nothing to resolve it. If you don’t have energy or motivation — then you do everything in your power to find it. Because if you don’t, you’re as good as dead — at least, psychologically speaking.

And when you seek help, you don’t ask: “Can you please give me energy and motivation?” Nobody can ever give you that, as much as they will lie to the contrary. You have to find a purpose for your life. If anyone helps you, they’re helping you help yourself. They don’t carry you, and live your life for you. They inspire you, assuming they’re inspirational. That’s the only kind of help there is.

All of this is connected to our growing sociopolitical crisis. More and more people don’t believe they should have to be active. They do the bare minimum, and — increasingly — are handed material prosperity to them by their parents or family (and in poorer sectors, the government — especially if you’re an illegal immigrant). But none of it works. It leads only to more depression, angst, anger and resentment. You can’t have a society filled with millions of people — tens of millions of new people dependent on the government, waiting for the next expensive government handout — and not expect a horrendous sociopolitical crisis. It’s frankly amazing that we haven’t seen worse. It’s a tribute to how much America started out with, that we don’t have an even worse crisis on our hands. But we will: Unless real people start to challenge all the faulty thinking that got us into this mess.

There is absolutely no other solution.