Maintaining Positivity in the Permacrisis

It’s not news that anxiety and depression are on the rise in the United States. If you’ve not dealt with the beast yourself, you’re more likely than not to have supported a friend or a loved one with theirs.

Crucially, the 2024 American Psychiatric Association’s annual mental health poll reported that—on top of a staggering 43 percent of adults feeling more anxious than in the previous year—seven out of 10 adults claim their anxiety to be driven by current events.

This is unsurprising; in the last few years, we’ve witnessed a multitude of crises take hold of our lives. Economic hardship and instability, continued environmental degradation, the outbreak or escalation of international conflict, and the deepening of political divisions have all coalesced to create the “permacrisis”—or as David Shariatmadari put it, "the dizzying sense of lurching from one unprecedented event to another, as we wonder bleakly what new horrors might be around the corner."

But while we can understand the root of our heightened anxiety, we are certainly not powerless in the face of these challenges. We can build resilience and nurture a sense of optimism in the face of the permacrisis. In fact, positive psychology and Buddhist wisdom have much to offer us here.

With his famous "hope theory," positive psychologist Charles Snyder argues for the invaluable benefits of cultivating hope. The theory argues that even in psychologically challenging times, by building achievable goals, nurturing a positive sense of agency, and mapping out the pathways to our goals, we can embrace and reap the benefits of feeling hopeful.

What’s more, in addition to the warm glow and restful nights that hope provides, research looking at more than 13,000 individuals found that hope is associated with lower levels of depression, increased meaning, better physical health, and lower cancer risks.

But, while undoubtedly compelling in itself, to me the cultivation of hope is incomplete without a deeper appreciation of the impermanence of our worlds—a well-known part of Buddhist wisdom.

You see, humans hate uncertainty—in fact, we avoid it at all costs. We want fixed certainty regarding our jobs, relationships, housing, health, and, undoubtedly, the way the world works. So, in this context of our world being in a constant state of flux, dealing with the inevitability of uncertainty and change cannot be wished away.

According to Buddhism, recognising that our realities are constantly changing (or impermanent) is fundamental to coping with the world and can be liberating in offering endless possibilities for positive change.

So, drawing on hope theory and Buddhism’s impermanence, I make three key suggestions for turning our potential for anxiety into optimism:

1. Trust in the Process of Change

If we are able to relax into the inevitability of change, we may begin to enjoy the constant possibility for transformation, growth, and learning, as well as trust that people and systems are always working toward being in a better place. This is not to disregard the experience of many people suffering across the globe, in war zones and places of environmental hardship, but rather to hope that the world will learn and continue to adjust productively.

2. Take Action for Others

While accepting the inevitability of change means somewhat relinquishing our control over the state of things, we are not entirely without agency. Where there are crises, there are always groups in need and opportunities to do good. Taking action where we know we can contribute has been shown to increase happiness and naturally builds hope through exercising our willpower toward larger, societal-level goals.

As the Dalai Lama says, “If one is seriously concerned about one’s well-being, one has to really open up one’s heart and create space for others.”

3. Seek Out Joy

Finally, recognising what brings us joy and deliberately making space for it every day is crucial. For me, this is taking my morning coffee slowly and without my phone each day, going for a swim at lunchtime, and sitting down with my wife to watch a show in the evening. Not only do these rituals remind us that there is reason to enjoy the world as it shifts, but they also relax our minds, which allows us to see situations more clearly.

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The world will continue to change as we resolve current issues but then face new ones. What’s important is supporting ourselves and each other through it. Where anxiety and depression lead us to freeze, starting with these three steps can nurture the positivity we need to face the permacrisis with calmness and the energy to keep moving forward.