A Game Everyone Can Play

Joshua Glenn Clark said it like this, “We waste so many days waiting for the weekend. So many nights wanting morning. Our lust for future comfort is the biggest thief of life

Do you exercise your discipline to step back from the noise of the world?

In 2010, Harvard psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert conducted a study with 2,250 subjects, checking with them at random times (via a phone app) to record what they were doing at that moment and what their mind was focused on. A quarter-million datapoints later, they determined that the test subjects (and all of us by extrapolation), had wandering minds, i.e. were not paying attention/fully engaged with what was right in front of them -- a whopping 47 percent of the time.

Biggest Dirstractions - yesterday, tomorrow, money, power, sex, regret, guilt, self-loathing, pleasure seeking, the need for notoriety, possessions, comparing, and indifference.g 

A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.

Is it focused on the task at hand or something else?

Your body's here with me but my mind is on the other side of town.

Despite the fact that we're more connected than ever before most middle-aged Americans report moderate to high levels of loneliness.

According to NPR, a new survey of 10,000 Americans finds 61% of us are lonely. Young people, men and those new at their jobs are some of the hardest hit.

That means that if you encounter 10 people today at least 6 of them are lonely.

Feelings of loneliness impacts your body's physical health. In fact, research shows that loneliness is a more significant predictor by more than a two-fold magnitude of early mortality compared to obsesity.

Your well-being has more to do with how you think than what you eat.

Pay particular to the bars outlined in red.

Preview

According to the Centers for Disease Control, there's been a very large increase, particularly among women over the last three years alone there's been a 33% increase in the diagnosis of major depression in women.

This trend is occurring in teens ages 12 -17 as well.

The occurrence of depression is much greater in females and becomes worse over time.

Suicide rates have been rising since hitting a low in 2000.

Adolescent suicides have more than doubled.

Suicide attempts are higher among students who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual compared with students who identify as heterosexual.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death of young people between the ages of 15 and 24. · 5,000 young people complete suicide in the U.S. each year.

American Indian/Alaska Native adolescents compared with other racial and ethnic groups, by an extreme margin. White adolescents have a higher suicide rate compared with Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic and Black adolescents.

Feeling a lack of purpose can also contribute to depression and anxiety, especially when you feel unable to see a way out of your empty feelings.

According to JAMA Network people in their 60's with low purpose in life are over 2x as likely to die within five years as those with high levels. 

Contrary to popular belief, there is a direct correlation between our psychological well-being and our systemic health.

• Are you feeling depressed or disheartened ?
• Are you feeling a bit hopeless?
• Do you feel like we're all going to hell in a handbasket?
• Do you feel that we are more separated than we've ever been before?
• Are the answers hidden within the problems?
• Are they even real problems for you to be concerned about?
• Are you depressed, suicidal, distracted, or unhappy right now?
• How long have you been swimming against the current?
• Do you believe that judging and attacking your brother is the answer?

Ready to play a different game?