Really?
Having had limited access to Facebook this week I had quite a lot to catch up on yesterday when my G4 Mac started to work relatively consistently and allowed me to access my newsfeed. I admit, I'm hooked on social networking. What I had the opportunity to notice, with fresh eyes, as I scrolled down the page was the number of platitudes posted by a page I had 'liked' a few weeks ago. Here are a few: If god gave you lemons, make lemonade; Doing what you love is a true cornerstone to abundance in your life; and my personal favourite, I nourish myself by saying 'no' when I mean no and 'yes' when I mean yes. I know what I want. Eh? It all 'got my goat' as my grandmother would say.
In the UK we have a happiness Tsar and he has been tasked by the government to get the nation to be happier. The happiness Tsar has made cbt more widely available on the NHS and has a website with down loadable posters telling us that we should count our blessings every single day. He even has a Road Show and other deputy happiness Tsars working their way round Britain making Swindon happier and Crawley more positive. Now don't get me wrong, I find nothing wrong in expressing gratitude, what I find worrying is that there is beginning to be a general consensus that if you are not hitting the 'Ten Keys to Happier Living' (including having a positive approach to life, having goals and always having something to look forward to) there is something very wrong with you and you should buck up your ideas. A lot of popular positive psychology is based on the premise that the source of unhappiness is inside your head and that the solution is to change your attitude. Isn't this just a more polite way of saying buck your ideas up or pull yourself together? Unhappiness, anxiety and depression are often a result of abuse, poverty, ill health and social exclusion and is on the upswing in countries where there is widening inequality between the rich and the poor. Shouldn't the government be putting money and resources into tackling these issues rather than fleetingly boosting the morale of the social anxiety set? No amount of cbt and gazing at smiley faces is going to put a roof over your head and food on your table. The problem with the page I 'liked' and the approach of the happiness Tsar is that they give no thought to the social context of the source of an individuals unhappiness and try to motivate and chivvy them along the with throw away new agey concepts and platitudes.
