Show notes
In this episode Joanne Williams, LCSW discusses how we see the world thru fears eyes and a way to change that lens. Summary of today Podcast: The World Is a Lot Less Screwed up Than We Think It Is Long-term trends look good. 5 Classes of worries and ways to handle them Today I want to share 10 things that are getting better in our world in an article by Concoda and How our chronic fears fall into five fairly distinct classifications: A. Gilkey a pastor in 1930. Worries about disasters which, as later events proved, never happened. About 40% of my anxieties. Worries about decisions I had made in the past, decisions about which I could now of course do nothing. About 30% of my anxieties. Worries about possible sickness and a possible nervous breakdown, neither of which materialized. About 12% of my worries. Worries about my children and my friends, worries arising from the fact I forgot these people have an ordinary amount of common sense. About 10% of my worries. Worries that have a real foundation. Possibly 8% of the total. Gilkey prescribes: Limit worrying to the fifth group. This simple act will eliminate 92% of his fears. It will leave him free from worry 92% of the time. Listen for any of these fear as hear the 10 things that are getting better in the world and how if you can keep focused and say to yourself, I will only worry about this issue, IF IT ACTUALLY is happening than using up valuable energy with 99% of worries never come true. Sounds simple it is the hard part is changing the worry habit. If you want help read my upcoming book how to stop worry in 5 steps. Everyone is guilty of spreading negative vibes at some point — Think about social media, your attention is usually fixed on the drama of the day. Or in the mass media matrix, the politics, and the social injustices for one moment, though it's hard to believe, we have made decent progress as a species over recent history. Here are the 10 Ten Global Trends: Every Smart Person Should Ronald Bailey and Marian Tupy destroy the pessimistic narrative that the world is heading toward an apocalypse by laying out ten simple, yet powerful, facts showing humanity has progressed over the last few centuries. Here is good news, start to direct your focus to what you want more of in the world, instead of the "car wrecks of messaging" vying for your attention. The global economy has increased by 100x. Compared to, the 1900s, with the help of freer markets and rule of law, saw GDP growth rates average at least 3%. Tupy calculates GDP will increase to a whopping $1.1 quadrillion by 2100. Global poverty has imploded. In today's world of rampant consumer capitalism, it's hard to believe that only two centuries ago 84% of the global population lived in poverty, earning almost $1.90 per day. But as The Great Enrichment spread gradually across the world, we managed to cut extreme poverty in half. Now, the global poverty rate stands at 9.3%, and if this keeps falling at today's pace, it will drop to roughly 5% by 2030. The United Nations also set the goal of abolishing extreme poverty for everyone, everywhere by the same year. We're not running out of fuel. Despite what some people claim, we're not running low on any resource. In fact, the Simon Abundance Index reveals that almost every commodity increases in volume and availability the more we demand them. Humanity has yet to run out of a single commodity, and we're not even close. Famine has almost disappeared. In 1961, the daily supply of calories stood at ~2,100, but now, this has risen to ~3,000. "The world's poorest region enjoys access to food. Today, famines only exist in war torn countries and those experiencing droughts, but that could change in the future as relief efforts continue to improve. Democracy is smashing autocracy. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, democracy has spread rapidly across the world, beating the communist and fascist regimes that had arisen since the 1920s. Though now it's still close, the world has more democracies than autocracies. Using a scale from -10 to 10, where -10 equals tyranny and 10 equals a free society. From 1989 to 2017, the number of "fully-fledged democracies", a score of 7 or above, rose by 13%, while "fully-fledged autocracies", a score of -7 or less, decreased from 39% to 11%. 6.We have more trees now, not less. Contrary to popular belief, mother nature is beating deforestation. In September 2018, a University of Maryland study found that the global tree canopy — the visible portion of the plant— has not declined but increased by 2.24 million square kilometers, an area bigger than Alaska and Montana's landmass combined. 7.The world is much safer. As technology has advanced rapidly in the modern age, dying from a natural disaster is now 99% less likely according to the International Disaster Database. Since satellites give scientists a comprehensive overview of developing weather conditions, meteorologists have Doppler radar to measure hurricanes, seismologists use data to detect future landslide risk, and volcanologists listen to volcanoes to predict eruptions, most governments can act in time. Interstate wars have almost disappeared. In 2017,the RAND Corporation reported that, apart from a short period between 2014–2015, armed conflict worldwide has decreased dramatically. Now, if we could just get the U.S. and China war machines to leave the Middle East and Africa, we may get closer to world peace. We've yet to become urban. "No country has grown to middle income without industrializing and urbanizing. None has grown to high income without vibrant cities," says the World Bank, illustrating how the rise of cities globally has helped improve human prosperity. While you'll find most innovation, growth, and money in cities, this actually helps the planet. It's hard to fathom how city dwellers produce a smaller carbon footprint than people living in rural areas, but it's true. And as the other 3 billion people who still live in rural areas keep moving to the city, this will continue to improve. There's more to go around. You've probably heard that a decreasing population is bad for the world — and especially bad for your stocks, shares, and real estate. But there are many upsides too. As Tupy and Marion state, "falling child mortality rates, increased urbanization, rising incomes, and the spread of political and economic freedom" correlate with families having fewer children, which also creates more reproductive freedom. Wolfgang Lutz, a demographer at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, predicts the global population will peak at 9.8 billion in 2080 and will have dropped to 9.5 billion by 2100. This one is for the grandchildren. It's still scr*wed though. And it always will be. That's how the world works. As new injustices and atrocities emerge every day, we'll never be content or satisfied. That's the way we think. Our minds make it happen. Negativity and availability bias, psychological fallacy means we love to consume the bad over the good. It results from a cognitive shortcut to enable quick decisions and judgments. Maybe we're too privileged. Maybe we have it so great that when most of our problems disappear, we tend to create or seek out new ones. And sometimes, we focus so much on the negatives that we forget we have it better than ever. We can't dispute that the ten trends Tupy and Bailey have outlined proving we've progressed as a species, but we'll never let go of how we believe the world is descending into chaos. We know it's not all doom and gloom. We know the world is a lot less sc*rwed than we want to believe it is, and, deep down, this will keep us going in the back of our minds; for now, at least. It is a choice to consume news and then evaluate it to see how it can serve you. Instead of create fear. We are creatures of drama, but for today, choose to see the world as ½ full? This is by no means a replacement for therapy of any medical attention if you need it. Always reach out and take care of yourself or if you are feeling like you want to hurt yourself, there is always someone standing by at 1800-273-8255 or call 911. Remember to Share the Love. emotional support animal or a Psychiatric Service Dog Check out the videos of the podcasts at AnxietySimplified.net