The Pressure to Be Joyful
It was so Americana - and such a failure - that the Kamala Harris presidential campaign had the meme of joy. That exhuberance of mood is so expected in America and so alienating to the majority of humans who are struggling to be emotionally stable, pay their bills and open doors to a future. Voters decoded the Democratic ethos as: You don't understand what we're about.
Despite the escalation of economic uncertainty and employment insecurity, the pressure continues to be joyful.
More of the clients for my tarot-reading services lament, for example, that at their community social clubs and even in the workplace they are expected to be happy-clappy. Have a serious persona? The odds you'll be asked if something is wrong. The message really is: Loop into the bright and shiny force field or there could be social as well as employment penalities.
In contrast in other cultures being emotionally cautious is the norm. Henry James made that a theme in his novels about the difference between Europeans and Americans. I was brought up in an Eastern European household and the family dynamic was about coping with what is and getting connections for better employment situations. Not about exuding happiness. Yet in grade school, which socialized us to be American, I got it that I had to be bursting with joy.
With so many intersecting challenges currently it seems downright cruel to impose on human beings the mandate of what is really toxic optimism. This is a period, for too many, of economic scarcity.
Thriving in difficult times starts from the inside.
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