Suffering a brain injury, and the risk of depression associated with recovering from a stroke, has left me with an interest in mental health issues. So when I came across this –
– I had to check it out.
[Read on to find out more. And check out the Apoplexy Tiny Letter.]
Now, admittedly, never been unhappier applies something similar to the English Premier League rule – whereby football begin in 1992.
The Grauniad‘s actually saying is that young people’s wellbeing has fallen over the last 12 months and is at its lowest level since the study was first commissioned in 2009. But that was still enough to get me pondering age and happiness.
One of the many pieces of luck I encountered in my stroke experience was that I was still – just about – young enough to have a good upside for my recovery. And at the same time, I was old enough to have some of the bases to support recovery in place – a loving, supportive primary relationship, the age and experience to have suffered and come back from setbacks, that sort of thing.
The stroke also revealed how precarious some of the pillars supporting our lives can be. We were suddenly unable to continue our lives in New York, but having a combination of some means and supportive friends and family to help effect a change was another huge advantage.
As I spend time with the brilliant and brilliantly woke [Did I use that right? – Ed] young people around the Edinburgh literary and arts scenes, it’s seems obvious to me that they’re industrious and motivated and far from the feckless and amorphous lump that many of their elders might like to believe they are. But the prevailing conditions tend to leave lives precarious.
I’d like to think that the Millennials and the Xers have some things in common. Nothing to do with that infographic, though. I mean, either a Boomer assembled that, or the Xers have really let Douglas Copeland down.
The research carried out by the Prince’s Trust – a charity founded by Charles Windsor –
revealed that three out of five young people regularly feel stressed amid concerns over jobs and money, while one in four felt “hopeless”, and half had experienced a mental health problem.
And three were George, Charlotte, and the one that’s apparently due this month (?!) The chief executive of the charity said the Prince of Wales will donate the investments of the Duchy of Cornwall described in the Paradise Papers to a deserving Millennial.
OK, what Nick Stace actually said was
One of the most important things we can do to stem this flow is to show young people that it’s worth having high aspirations, that opportunities to earn a good living and progress in a career are out there and that they’ll be supported along the way to live, learn and earn.
Well, yes. We should definitely show young people that.
I jest, of course. The Guardian doesn’t actually name the study that was first commissioned in 2009, but it’s the Macquarie Youth Index, so named for the global investment banking and diversified financial services group that carries it out. That’s the Macquarie Group that provides banking, financial advisory and investment and funds management services to institutional, corporate and retail clients and counterparties around the world.
Macquarie may have depressed young people in Britain by being involved with Thames Water’s extensive pollution of the Thames. I don’t know. Though that’s what this Wikipedia page, with references to articles by the BBC and FT, seems to be suggesting. What I do know is that Macquarie is known as the Millionaire Factory, so if anyone can show da yoot that opportunities and earning potential are, indeed, all around, I’d think it would be Macquarie.
But while we’re waiting, I’m going to follow the advice of my Morrissey-fêting hero, and hug a hoodie.
