To have any form of decent mental health, a person needs to have hope for the future along, with a belief that life has a purpose regardless of one’s state of health or wealth.
Our grandparents believed you got Crosses in life to make you stronger, which they bore with dignity and mostly silence.
Men’s work, for the most part was physical: there were no fork lifts or JCBs. They were physically worn out by the time they were 50.
Their wives had numerous children…..no pill; the only form of contraception was abstinence, which was frowned on.
Life was tough, yet suicide was not the major problem it is today. Men found solace in the “Pint” in the local, women in the “Gossip” over the garden wall. Religion too played a big part of their lives.
But times have changed and in the 21st Century, we all expect much more from life. Most young people today are twice as educated as their parents or grandparents, yet they can’t find a jobs.
The jobs they do find are well below their educational or creative capacity. It is not unusual to find a person with a Masters Degrees waiting on tables or serving in the local pub!
Like the character in “My Fair Lady” they are educated to soar to the heights, yet the ladder has been taken away.
Apart from the lack of jobs, there is a spiritual void in peoples lives which material possessions or “the craic” cannot fill and does not equip them to deal with hard times.
As Martin Luther King Jr “If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values – that all reality hinges on moral foundations, and that all reality has spiritual control”
Yours Sincerely
Cllr Nuala Nolan
Phone 086 407 2622
