Cold, Anxiety, and Responsibility

"Are You Depressed or Do You Have a Horrible Life?"

The above subtitle is the title of a YouTube short by Jordan Peterson, an inspiring personality, Professor of Psychology, and a New York Times Best Selling Author of 12 Rules for Life (if you haven't read it yet, you should; better yet, reread it).

In the clip, he makes an important distinction between being depressed and being horrible, which I would like to share with you.

Before I get down to the details, please, if you are depressed, get help.

"If you're depressed, you have a life that, in principle, should work but isn't." - Jordan Peterson.

Professor Peterson lists the following attributes that may characterize the state of the depressed person, "I've got a good job, I've got a good family, and my wife loves me, but man, I'm miserable all the time."

I believe that the sense here is that when you're depressed, you are aware of the state of life and are reasonably primed to do something about it. It may be said that it is this consciousness that makes you depressed as you strive to live up to your responsibilities and interact with your support systems.

Take a young married man with a meager salary, four children, and a loving wife whose earnings add to the family's income but not substantially. Let's add that this gentleman also has ailing parents on both sides. In an economy like Nigeria's, whose currency has been diving since Mr. Tinubu took power (now about N1,900 to a dollar, compared to less than N800 before his administration), this man may rightly observe, if he is, that he is depressed.

We may add that if he maintains a reasonable membership in a structured society and is connected to some support systems, he would not only find help with his depression, but he would soon be opportune to ascend to a social status that would improve his lot.

Let's note another young man without a job on the streets of Lagos who rises to tout bus drivers for a change every morning (this is the case with the public transport system in Lagos where young, uneducated males are mobilized by a unionized cabal to distort transporters) but whose addiction to gambling sees him parade nearby betting shops to take his chances with each penny he gains from both hustles. It is unlikely that this young man would lay claim to depression but even if he did, he would be naive, he is simply living a horrible life.

Why not?

He has "no intimate partner, no family, no children, no friends, no job, no career, no educational pathway, no engagement in Civic responsibility, no church, attendance no, spiritual life, no [meaningful] routine," says Peterson.

The latter man is enmeshed in perpetual complacency, and unless he sets his house in order, he is destined for worse.

So, depression is quite connected to responsibility, and it seems the more obligations you have, the greater your tendency to depression.

If you are depressed, please get help.

Are You Anxious for Nothing or E-mails?

Please hang in for a minute. It's been a while.

In a previous edition, I told you I was losing momentum for my fledging podcast. It turned out to be more than just that. I came down with a cold, catarrh, and bouts of migraine.

I shut down my personal computer to rest from work but couldn't. I kept checking my inbox to be sure I got urgent requests—the fear that my colleagues would find me MIA captivated me throughout.

I learned this feeling is pervasive among the working class, and Gloria Mark took it on in her book. I read David Epstein's interview with Gloria Mark in his newsletter. You might find it interesting too.

Anxiety over email communication is unhealthy. If you work a 9-5 job, how do you cope with it?

Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Impacting is Tough Business

One more thing.

Teaching isn't easy, and development work isn't rosy.

Try how we might with branding; you can't edit the reality that great work is often done under hard situations, and development professionals (teachers included) are a tough bunch.

I was reminded of this at a small private school, where I began teaching a final year class of senior school students this month how to pass the English Language test in the West African Senior Secondary School Examination.

In the link below is a clip of one of my sessions. You can hear the unrelenting noise of students from other classes (some with teachers present). I couldn't edit out their noise.

My spell at the school is supposed to be a teaching practice required for earning a license, but this week, I learned my students need to learn the basic classification of sentences in English. The saying goes, "To whom much is given, much is expected." But in the education and development sectors, we may well say, "To whom less is given, much is expected."

Everything good will come.