NEWS

Well-Being

Contemporary life offers a wide range of ideas that point towards enhancing Well Being. Well meaning and inspired ideas, designed to help reduce the hum drum demands and expectations of vocational and personal life, with the promise of renewal and rejuvenation.   Never before have we had so much choice, intellectually, creatively, physically and spiritually. Yet we still see high levels of fatigue, exhaustion and burnout and the accompanying symptoms to include family and relationship crises, destructive behaviour, stress, addictive disorders, divisive work team dynamics and much more besides.  It makes sense then, that the attention of individual people, those within businesses, institutions and organisations are beginning to focus on ‘well-being’ in the hope of building resilience.

Human beings and their societies have lost sight of healthy physical limits and internal psychological boundaries and as a result continually over extend beyond realistic and safe expectations.  These limits have been bombarded by the exponential increase in demand and need for success and gratification.  The definition and acknowledgement of limitations and boundaries which are often very subtle is of enormous importance if we are to maintain balance, ‘health’ and ‘well-being’.  In todays society we have been conditioned as a norm to go over these boundaries and in many cases to remain over them as a means of self preservation.  We otherwise face the threat of being seen as not giving of our best, not being committed, disloyal, or just plain lazy;  judgements that most people work tirelessly to avoid, so as to retain a sense of ‘safety’.  People have become vulnerable to their own insatiable drive for perfection and need satisfaction in response to the terror of not having physical and psychological security.

It is beginning to be recognised by many areas of society that the current momentum of workaholism and accompanying burnout cannot sustain and that within the structures and organisations which include business, and other collectives, something must change.  Science and academia are being called upon to address the problem of burnout, addiction, stress, health problems and the reduction in efficiency and productivity. Whilst they make a valuable contribution, they themselves are as much the problem, as the problem they are addressing, therefore, affected by the symptoms they work to understand and solve.    

Society has become accustomed to a particular level of demand, service and acquisition, which if not met, elicits an unforgiving response and demand for action and outcome.  This is felt throughout all levels of work and domestic living.  It raises the question of how this level of expectation and demand is to be maintained, whilst at the same time deconstructing diluting and dissolving that which has produced it in the first place; which is itself.  In other words, the disregard for physical limitations and psychological boundaries, which has ensured the satiation of demand, service and acquisition must be reversed. This reversal will mean an evaluation by all concerned about what is most important across all areas of personal and vocational life.

To be continued…