1. So, just why are we so miserable?

Blog post number 1, here we go!

Let’s start with a biggie, and look into why we’re all so bloody miserable!?

OK, we’re obviously not (well, not all the time at least) but there is a reason why British philosopher Thomas Hobbes declared that “life is nasty, brutish and short”.

You only really need to take a brief look back at some of the ‘highlights’ from 2020 to appreciate that statement. Add the pandemics, fires, floods and explosions to the delights of war, famine, poverty and illness, and it’s no wonder that we end up feeling a bit shit. It can be pretty grim out there.

These external events are clearly devastating, however, it can be our own internal worlds that are even more so (nice little segue there, right!?).

As humans, we have a strange tendency not to like ourselves very much. We regularly make mistakes, we often say the wrong thing, we carry a load of baggage and we make fools of ourselves far too frequently. Not only are we incredibly flawed, but we have an outstanding knack for comparing our imperfect selves to apparent over-achievers, other people’s public facades, and heavily-filtered social media influencers who are, of course, always #livingtheirbestlives

It’s all rather inconvenient.

Whilst there are many reasons why we often struggle to feel good enough, clever enough, charming enough, tall enough, thin enough, attractive enough, funny enough or generally [insert relevant word] enough, I suppose it can be quite reassuring to remind ourselves that these feelings of inadequacy do happen to everyone, despite what external facades and social media accounts may indicate. And there appears to be a fairly fundamental evolutionary reason for this.

One of the things that we humans have in common is that we all have a brain (yep, despite what it may seem like at times), which we’ve inherited from our great ancestors. Whilst this magnificent organ has developed to discover electricity, facilitate mankind’s landing on the moon, invent the internet and create the very laptop on which I’m typing this post, it has also evolved to keep our fears and insecurities at the forefront of our minds. Whereas nowadays, fears and insecurities can make us highly susceptible to feelings of anxiety and depression, in prehistoric times, it turned out that being scared of everything was a pretty effective way of staying alive.

In said prehistoric times, life seemed to be relatively simple (simple that is, not easy). Our goal was essentially two-fold: 1) survive and 2) procreate.

Basically, keep ourselves alive, and keep our race alive. So in order to do this, we needed to stay safe. In a world swarming with sabre-tooth tigers, giant bears, leopards and other tribesmen (to name but a few), this was no easy task. As such, we needed to be constantly vigilant and on high alert to these predators, otherwise we’d have been dinner. And that wouldn’t have been good.

So how’s that relevant to this day and age?

Well, though that was hundreds of thousands of years ago, this is who we’ve evolved from. As such, we’ve inherited this organ that’s pre-programmed to be wary of any threat to our ancient goal of survival. Our brain still has the same safety-seeking purpose, it’s just that the stimuli are different nowadays.

Generally, the majority of us don’t tend to have man-eating cats chasing after us on the regular anymore, so this alertness to threat now manifests itself in different, and more emotionally driven ways.

More specifically, it can manifest itself in feelings of depression, worry, anxiety and the likes. As our brain is wired for survival, then it’s no wonder that, for example, we fret so much over what other people think of us. Being accepted into a group was a pretty fundamental ancient survival requirement. If we weren’t part of a tribe then we would have, to put it mildly, been fucked. So in this day and age, this can lead to us occasionally freaking out in social situations, agonising over that social media post, beating ourselves up for saying the wrong thing, or generally kinda just wanting to be liked.

Or, take the above-mentioned example of us not feeling [insert insecurity here] enough. If we’re a bi-product of Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ evolutionary theory, then it seems inevitable that our self-preservation seeking brain will ensure we (often negatively) compare ourselves to others, to see what we’re “up against” (it’s basically just The Hunger Games out there!)

The list of anxiety/depression inducing triggers goes on, but the principle remains the same. These feelings of inadequacy can often be traced back to our ancient survival seeking goals. As illusionist, author, and all-round genius Derren Brown states in his book ‘Happy’, “We all operate from the vantage point of our own deep fears, and we stand guard against any threat to them”.

Historically, keeping fear at the forefront of our minds has served us well. It’s ensured that the human species has stayed alive. Though in this day and age, it can be a big contributor towards us occasionally (slash frequently) feeling a bit rubbish.

However, it can serve as some reassurance if we remember that biological evolution appears to suggest that this is something we’re all susceptible to, and trying to navigate - despite social media trying to convince us otherwise!

And when we do feel a little down, it can also be helpful to remind ourselves that it’s just our poor, overly sensitive brain’s way of trying to keep us safe.

Rather ironic really.