The American Tradition of Trying to Address Anxiety with Parks | Hacker News Reader

The American Tradition of Trying to Address Anxiety with Parks

time.com

It’s heart breaking to see they are defuning NPs. From my immigrant’s POV, National Park’s system is one of these cool things America did incredibly well. I’m a huge fan of it and visit parks at least 5-6 times in a year.

The American phenomenon of labeling the natural consequence of economic stress + overwork + being disconnected from healthy relationships and nature as "anxiety" and treating the symptom with brain scrambler pills while doing nothing about the cause.

This is why I get angry at my doctor whenever they say "Reduce your stress." I'm like "Dude, I can't just quit my job like that." Meanwhile everyone else is telling me to paper over the cracks in the wall with meditation, exercise, and good eating. Turns out that doesn't do much when you are working 60-80 hours a week. Meanwhile, it's getting harder and harder to support your family.

Assuming you are working in IT, there are plenty zero stress working opportunities available. However, they are not being paid that well. There I’m going with it - there is a choice available, more money vs less stress.

...Which actually works out to trading one kind of stress for another. It's a false choice.

This is a systemic problem, and we cannot fix it with individualized solutions. For the vast majority of people, the only way to actually get ahead is to fix the system.

Tax the rich. Shatter the current massive income and wealth inequalities. Institute proper social safety nets. Provide for everyone, not just those deemed "deserving."

It is 100% this. The system is broken and everyone knows it. But people are convinced that the solution to the problem is somehow worse.

Dunno when you last touched the job market but those “less stress, lower salary” jobs are evaporating in real time.

If Americans weren’t so sinophobic, they’d probably have made 996工作制 standard operating procedure by now.

I literally on the job market right now and got few offers from banks. But perhaps it's region-specific and outside of Bay Area the situation is drastically different, idk.

Less money can mean more stress.

I have found that, if you are competent, the role will quickly expand to fill your ability to accomplish it.

Edit: Probably regardless of competency to be honest.

I first started hearing about it 20 years ago, and was able to confirm it for myself earlier this year. In order to truly de-stress, to let go, you need 3 weeks away. Doesn't have to be a 3 week vacation, just 3 weeks of not thinking about work.

If you can do it, I highly recommend it if for no other reason to clearly see just how much stress your work is adding to your life, even if everything seems "fine".

I say that fully acknowledging that very, very few people will get that opportunity, "unlimited" PTO or otherwise.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com