Rachel’s Musings

About a month ago, I was wondering out loud if there is something underneath many of the symptoms that we are witnessing. Something that ties them all together. A very interesting article by Charles Shaw on Alternet suggests that our overconsumption shows the patterns of addiction. Thus one of the symptoms I identified might be a key to unraveling all the symptoms.      Continue reading this post » » »

In A Guide to Personal Happiness Albert Ellis and Irving Becker suggest ten rules for achieving personal happiness among them:

1. Decide to strive primarily for your own happiness.
2. Decide to put other people’s happiness a close second to your own.
3. Decide that you largely control your own emotional destiny.

Essentially, we are responsible for our own happiness. Yet, society seems to suggest that we can find happiness best through marriage. In her book Singled Out, Bella DePaulo debunks that myth thoroughly but, of course, it remains pervasive.      Continue reading this post » » »

While I think it’s probably too simplistic to think that most of the big issues we’re facing today can be traced back to one source, I do think that there is a lot more interconnectedness than we would like to admit. What are the big issues we’re facing, what are the symptoms of the malaise that has no name yet?

Here are some I could think of:

• Global warming
• Overconsumption
• Increasing debt both consumer and national
• Decrease in marriage rate/increase in divorce rate
• Increase in depression
• Depletion of natural resources
• Contamination of soil, water, and air
• Overpopulation
• Increase in work hours

Of course these are interrelated, you’ll say. Because we consume so much, we’re depleting our resources, contaminating everything, and create global warming! Yes, that’s true. I would like to step back a bit further, though, and ask why: why are we consuming so much? What need(s) are being met here? Certainly marketing and advertising have something to do with it but again, I don’t quite buy the story of need-creation. I don’t think marketers can create a need out of thin air. I do think that they can take a need and redefine it so that it will be met only if you buy a certain product. And I think there are some very fundamental needs that our modern society does not meet in the most direct way. The two fundamental needs that are not being met well are belonging and meaning.      Continue reading this post » » »

I suggest that all three - religion, spirituality, and philosophy - in their essence are trying to answer two existential questions, with variations:

• What is the meaning of my life?
  • Why am I here on earth?
  • Who am I?
  • What’s this all about?
  • Where do I belong?

• How can I live a meaningful life?
  • What is my life purpose?
  • What am I supposed to do with my life?
  • How can I lead an ethical life?

[I would love a discussion on these questions! I am struggling to figure out if there are two or three questions: is the need for belonging separate or is it part of our need for meaning? Is the second question, how can I live a meaningful life, really an existential question or is it simply an outgrowth from the meaning need and thus a variation of that question rather than its own question?]      Continue reading this post » » »

The January 2008 edition of Monitor on Psychology contains a letter to the editor regarding Dr. Phil Zimbardo’s arguments that the system an individual lives in needs to be taken into account. The letter writer argues that this is simply avoiding personal responsibility.

System vs. personal responsibility - it’s not an either or. In the same issue of the Monitor is a fascinating article on Americans’ financial troubles. We are just not saving enough money, which doesn’t seem to be news, but what appears to be new is that psychologists are showing an interest in helping people shed their false beliefs about money to help them overcome their money voes, something that Joe Dominguez has been advocating since the 1970s. Then David Korten points out in The Great Turning that our money troubles stem from increasing costs of living. It’s more expensive to rent or to buy a house, our share of health care costs keep going up, eating healthy is pricey etc. Again, there is a system pegged against personal responsibility.      Continue reading this post » » »