Fear of stress?

How do you get from freedom to stress? It's rather easy actually. Stress is caused primarily by uncertainty and I would maintain that we live in one of the most uncertain times in human history. We've been at it for as long as I've been around, and a quick glance at literature will convince you it goes back much further than just me.

In the Middle Ages, things were anything but in order: wars, famine, peasantry, serfdom. But, everybody knew where they fit in. They didn't have to sell their talents on the open job market, they didn't have to worry about their housing being taken away from them because they couldn't pay their loans, they might have wondered where their next meal was coming from (though almost half of the people receiving food stamps in America are working, but not earning enough to feed themselves, but at least they can get some kind of help). God was in heaven, the king was on the throne, the aristocracy and clergy had the upper hand and the rest of us simply knew our place. With the Renaissance and Reformation, that all changed. Suddenly, we were on our own. We didn't like it then, we have had a lot of trouble coming to terms with it since, and we don't handle it very well now. Why is that?

I don't think there's a simple answer, but I think I know in which direction to look for one. Being taken out of the group and placed on one's own is not something that we're used to as human beings. The next thing you know capitalism was on the rise, and it's been rolling like a juggernaut ever since. Every person for himself! Take what you can while you can get it! God's dead (according to Prof. Nietzsche) so there's nothing to hold you back ethically any longer! It's the survival of the fittest, says Mr. Spencer (not Darwin ... he never said such a thing)! And the dog-eat-dog, brutish life we imagine our forebears endured has been thrust upon ourselves. By ourselves.

Was this such a good move? I don't think so. I've been doubting it for quite a while. When we are left on our own, all we have are ourselves, and that is simply not enough. Regardless of the ideology that's driving it, no one ever does, nor has ever done, it all on his or her own. Truth be told, without one another, we're just not much of anything at all. At the end of the day, we're all in this together, so it would really be in our own best interest to take advantage of it. Even though others can often be a real source of stress, when approached more openly, I think you'll find they might be the best antidote, too.