We're losing our sh**: Angst is Megatrend #8.
Megatrends | Part 10 | Angst
Having dedicated centuries to establishing one-directional progress and order, humanity finds itself consumed by chaos. With lives more abstract, complex, and unpredictable, we are increasingly overwhelmed and distressed, and our children are experiencing unbearable rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidality.
Image credit: Prawny for Pixabay.
On the Megatrends series
I have earned an international reputation for leveraging global trends to create positive transformation. Having (1) introduced this concept and (2) set the stage through earlier posts, I now guide you on a 360-degree tour of today’s change landscape!
Having covered Gluttony, Abstraction, Permeability, Collective power, Cacophony, Obsolescence Pandemic, and Nomading, our tour continues to Angst, the second of the four trends fueled by the first six. All these trends are part of the roadmap for regenerative transformation that is Change-maker’s Handbook (2023).
See if you might read/listen actively. Consider these questions:
How does this trend manifest in your world? Society at large? Your family, community, or team(s)? Your investors or donors? The people your purpose calls you to serve?
Importantly, how does it play out in you? In your own motivations or struggles?
What shifts in what is possible, acceptable, or both underpin this trend?
Who — brands, politicians, non-profits — ride this trend? Do they succeed or fail? Why?
What does this trend make possible that was impossible before?
Our angst may be the most logical response to the effect that geopolitics (incl. the Trump effect), climate change and ecosystem collapse, and the megatrends I have already introduced are having on our lives.
The two brand new all-out ground wars (the Middle East and Ukraine) shattered illusions that world peace was a one-directional pursuit.
The world still guns down black men, claims that an assaulted woman “asked for it,” and does not deem seniors worthy of being addressed directly and with respect.
Hopelessness is on a deadly march, claiming as its spoils deaths of despair and all manner of radicalization. Dr. Vivek Murthy, the last Surgeon General of the United States was globally groundbreaking in using his position to identify the non-biological reasons for distress and illness. In 2021, he warned us about the blooming mental health crisis among our youth.[i] In 2024, he called for warning labels on social media sites due to proven harm to young people.[ii] In his last publication in office, My Parting Prescription for America[iii], Dr. Murthy focused on the underlying ailment of Americans that has resonance across the globe: the erosion of a sense of community that is fueling an epidemic of loneliness, a leading cause of distress. While Dr. Murthy has given a number of interviews, I particularly enjoyed his conversation with Simon Sinek on A Bit of Optimism! podcast (iHeart Podcasts).
The “flood the zone” approach of the new US administration has caused angst both at home and abroad. The global readership of this Substack makes the Agency for International Development (USAID) an apt example. It is little understood or appreciated domestically, and yet the abrupt halt to all its program means that millions of people are no longer receiving vital HIV, TB, or malaria treatments; that groundbreaking research is sacrificed, with participants in medical trials no longer monitored for adverse effects; and that thousands of workers and their families are forced to pull up roots, taking children out of school and further disrupting countless lives. With no warning, transition, or a plan for the future. I recommend associated posts by both Samantha Powell (USAID’s last administrator)[iv] and Sarah Sieloff, a USAID alumni and a fellow Substack writer who shares poignant first-hand examples.
The world’s most disadvantaged people are increasingly paying for the lifestyle gains the richest of us have enjoyed.
Girls/women are claiming the power of their inalienable rights even as it is still at risk from their own biology (more women are freezing their eggs than ever), physical violence, workplace discrimination, and the often sparse choice for worthy partners.
Boys/men are hurting socioeconomically, emotionally, and in other ways that warrant attention without competing or undermining girls/women.
LGBTQI+ people are still at risk of persecution around the world and with a ferver that many of us hoped our communities had relegated to history.
Even if “enough” retains its place in dictionaries, humanity is insatiable. Craving more has become acceptable, and getting whatever we want without having to afford it — increasingly possible in every facet of life (Gluttony).
Almost no determinants of modern life are tangible, and everything is more complex. So, everybody is anxious to shore up their value. Aerate with emotional intelligence and get chronic imposter syndrome (Abstraction).
Through a vicious cycle of technology and human ingenuity, the age of privacy has long ended. Every point is increasingly accessible, and nowhere is off limits or off the record (Permeability).
Whether well- or ill-informed, everyday people wield enormous power to both drive and stop change as well as to keep others accountable or shamed (Collective power).
Neither fads nor fashions seem to run their course before the next thing emerges. Every point of evolution has caught up with the present and co-exists in an overwhelming cacophony of options. We are all forced to belong to multiple tribes, each with the power to ostracize us (Cacophony).
With so much in flux, nothing ever seems quite right anymore. Systems, business models, products, and even people themselves wash up irreparably lacking (Obsolescence Pandemic).
One in 69 people — or 1.5 per cent of the entire world's population — is forcibly displaced. One in 30 people is living in a country, among a people, and by a set of rules other than what they know (Nomading).
Like it did for Nomading, the COVID-19 Pandemic supercharged the Angst trend by isolating us while giving us more reasons — both objective and perceived — to worry about our health, our communities, our governments, and the world as a whole. Angst is experienced particularly harshly by the youngest of us, perhaps because they grew up believing that they inhabited a world altogether more just and lovely than that of the older generations.
Reflection
Now, let’s revisit the framing prompts to absorb and apply:
How does this trend manifest in your world? Society at large? Your family, community, or team(s)? Your investors or donors? The people your purpose calls you to serve?
Importantly, how does it play out in you? In your own motivations or struggles?
What shifts in what is possible, acceptable, or both underpin this trend?
Who — brands, politicians, non-profits — ride this trend? Do they succeed or fail? Why?
What does this trend make possible that was impossible before?
We would cherish any and all reactions!
[i] Richtel, Matt. December 7, 2021. Surgeon General Warns of Youth Mental Health Crisis. The New York Times. Accessed February 8, 2025.
[ii] Dr. Vivek H. Murthy. June 17, 2024. Surgeon General: Why I’m Calling for a Warning Label on Social Media Platforms. The New York Times. Accessed February 8, 2025.
[iii] Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy. January 7, 2025. My Parting Prescription for America. www.hhs.gov. Accessed February 8, 2025.
[iv] Samantha Power. February 6, 2025. Killing U.S.A.I.D. Is a Win for Autocrats Everywhere. The New York Times. Accessed February 10, 2025.
Interesting that angst is so connected to so many other megatrends. Does that put it in its own meta category? You asked if this trend makes things possible that weren’t before? I wonder if this trend makes some things not possible that were before. Does angst - because it can be so consuming - blind us to possibilities, opportunities, and creativity?