so I have a choice as a psychiatrist I can see four people and prescribe four medications and make six hundred bucks an hour or I can talk to one person about their feelings and make 200 bucks an hour right that's the world we live in and it's not good enough like we can't use our standard solutions anymore we have to think outside of the box and we have to face the challenges that there are which is like AoE healing that's what this is about I want to say anonymous how to deal with climate change in the possibility of societal and economic collapse in the mid far future I'm horribly depressed because of it and I in so much pain I feel horrible for wanting to have children and possibly putting them into this world okay so I you know oddly enough I I get this fair amount like in my actual private practice like people come to me and they're kind of say they feel depressed because of like what the future holds so okay how can I say this
so like if so either societal or economic collapse is gonna happen so there are three possibilities right one is that societal or economic collapse is gonna happen the second is that it's not going to happen and the third is that it may happen so my response to this person is like which of those so if you feel like it's inevitable first of all like where do you get that because I don't think that's the case I mean people have been you know foreseeing economic collapse apocalypse and stuff since like as long as people got together and talked about this stuff right and so you know I I don't know I think human beings are like really bad at predicting the future generally speaking like if we just look at it historically there have been people who have been concerned about the collapse of humanity since humanity became a thing so I think that there's some you know evidence to kind of question your thoughts or beliefs there the second thing is that if it is
inevitable then I don't know exactly what that means I guess you have to sort of sort that out for yourself but my sense is that if you think that the world is like destined for failure then I think that you know what are you gonna do about it is my first question so I think this is like this is a question about Dharma so if you think that societal and economic collapse are like gonna happen like what are you gonna do about it so you can sort of say like oh the world is falling apart woe is me and I'm gonna feel depressed but I think that the world falls apart or whether things like fall apart or don't fall apart depends on like your actions and like mine depends on my actions and it depends on like twitch that's actions right like that's what we're here for we're I mean like we're here to sort of help ourselves we're here to help you know we're here to like help the world and make it a better place and so if you think that the world is like going to hell in a handbasket my
first thought is like what are you gonna do about it because in my experience if you have a problem and listen to this carefully if you have a problem and you start trying to do something about that problem and you start making progress then you will be amazed at how that affects your depression there's actually good evidence that there's something called behavioral activation which is an evidence-based treatment for depression and what behavioral activation is is it's like getting people to go out and do things behavioral activation is about the presumption that therapy and medication is not the only way that you can help people who are depressed but if you can get them to like go and do stuff if you can activate their behavior then their depression will get better so if you're depressed because you think the world is gonna fall apart like try to do something about it and you'll be amazed at like what difference that makes for your depression and maybe the world won't collapse because of what you do right it's kind of like just go and do something so I'd say like go plant a tree like if you're worried about climate change go plant a treat like if
things are screwed and we're all dead anyway at least there's one more tree around who knows and maybe that one tree is gonna be what tips the balance and prevents us from like cycling into a you know horrible like carbon emissions spiral where like ice is melting and more trapped co2 gets released and all that crap and then it's sort of a doomsday scenario I don't know but I'd say do something this stream is because I feel like young people and that's what what is that a Boomer statement or what but like I'm serious young people nowadays nowadays are feeling stuck in directionless and I don't think it's their fault to be very clear so I think that like the reason that a lot of people are disillusioned today is because we were told by the generation above us that there is a particular road to success right they said go to college get a job you with one income you can get a mortgage because this is what worked for us so this is the formula for success
and all you guys need to do is like do this thing and everything will be ok but the circumstances that they lived in in the circumstances that we live in are different right like the percentage the hours that you needed to work after you graduated from college to pay back your loans is like a fraction of what it is today the prices of homes back then were like way cheaper than they are now relative to standard income and the other thing is like college degrees are not worth nearly as much as they used to be right so like now it's like you see an intro-level position for $30,000 a year that requires 4 that's recommends 4 years of work experience it's like that's an entry-level position you're paying 30k year and you want 4 years of work experience like that's that's what we face right so you know I mean with my parents so they sort of said my dad told
us one of y'all is gonna be a doctor and one day all is gonna be a lawyer and my brother is older so he got to choose first and then after that we you know so I became a doctor and they sort of said like oh the way to be happy is to like just become a doctor and so I said ok fine and so I majored in pre-med but like I didn't care about it right like I just couldn't like it felt completely meaningless to me to just go and like get some job and be a doctor and like go out and like sure is ego behind saving lives but that's what it was about it's like I'm gonna be a doctor and then oh yeah I say lives oh that's how it is right I didn't really care about it and so I think the challenges that we face are different and I think that in the generation before us you could sort of live your life and you know you could get a job and you had like a pension that your company would like pay out 30 years from now like you could get a job at one company you could be an employee at that company for your entire life and
they would actually take care of you when you retired and you could just get a job and you could have a family in a white picket fence and everything was hunky-dory but like I think the world demands more of us today than it did in the past I think these issues like climate change and societal and economic collapse require more of the average person in terms of a contribution than like the past like people needed to do in the past I think in order to create a better world for all human beings today it requires all human beings to pitch in and that involves planting trees and involves like that's the birth of this stream was about like ok this is not working right like mental health is not working there are challenges that people face their wait list if you see therapists there are people who feel disillusioned there are people who go to see therapists and they get diagnosed with depression they get given a pill and sent home because currently the the compensation structure of medicine is to prescribe as much medication as you can
if you're a psychiatrist if you want to make the most money insurance pays about two hundred dollars for me to sit with someone on average for one hour and talk to them about their feelings and try to help them understand themselves insurance also pays me $150 to spend 15 minutes with that same person and prescribed them a medication so I have a choice as a psychiatrist I can see four people and prescribe four medications and make 600 bucks an hour or I can talk to one person about their feelings and make 200 bucks an hour right that's the world we live in and it's not good enough like we can't use our standard solutions anymore we have to think outside of the box and we have to face the challenges that there are which is like AoE healing that's what this is about because the challenges that people face nowadays are different it's like back in my day I used to get bullied but you know the cool thing is about being bullied in school like when I was growing up in the 80s and early 90s is
when you're done with school you get to go home and the bully doesn't chase you now with like social media like if you're getting bullied at school like what do you think happens to your Twitter account and Instagram account like people are trashing you on that too you can't escape from the bullies now the world is a different place and it needs like different solutions and so I get that you feel horribly too and that's absolutely like it's a reasonable response and I'm not blaming you for feeling that way but I think if we if humanity has any chance of coming out of this mess it's gonna be because of people like you actually doing something because of people like me actually doing something and I have faith that if we I have faith at the end of the day in despite you know what happened last week on on when I tried to hop on discord and I put my faith in humanity and I put my faith in twitch and and someone let me down but I still