Irritable
Male
Syndrome
2023- 2

 

Jed Diamond is the internationally best-selling author of eight books including Male Menopause, now translated into 17 foreign languages and his latest book, The The Irritable Male Syndrome: Managing. The 4 Key Causes of Depression and Aggression and Mr. Mean: Saving Your Relationship from the Irritable Male Syndrome He looks forward to your feedback. E-Mail You can visit his website at www.menalive.com Take The Irritable Male Syndrome quiz.

 

Falling in Love in the Second Half of Life - Part 5 Caring for the One You Love is the Gift of a Lifetime


One of the biggest fears that has dominated my life for many years is that I would be a burden on my loved ones when I got too old to take care of myself. When I was young I imagined myself going out in a blaze of glory, dying young fighting the good fight for family, God, and country. I imagined my surviving family would cherish my memory and my family wouldn’t have to worry about taking care of an old man.

I have been sharing my experiences giving care to my wife, Carlin, since her unexpected slip on a sidewalk and subsequent fall leading to partial hip-replacement surgery. In Part 1 I described the initial stages of the partial hip-replacement surgery and the small stroke that occurred during surgery that caused some memory and speech problems. In Part 2, I talked about the intimacy and exhaustion that comes with 24/7 home health care. Being a Caregiver was a new role for me and in Part 3, I described the deepening of our love that has occurs once I wholeheartedly embraced the calling. In Part 4 I described what I learned about getting out of my fix-it mentality and learning to listen more deeply. Here I want to talk about the great gifts we receive when we embrace caregiving.

When my own parents got older, I realized that I didn’t want to lose them and did my best to do some caretaking as they continued to age. But both my parents grew up with an even stronger desire not to be a burden, remained independent for much of their lives, and died following a relative short period where they needed caretaking. It wasn’t until Carlin’s mother got cancer and we brought her to live with us during the last months of her life that I found out about the beauty of being with a loved one until the very end of their life on earth.

Although I don’t consider myself “religious,” I was raised in the Jewish tradition. I do feel a very spiritual connection with life and believe that there is a spirit that survives energetically after our physical body has completed this life’s journey. I was surprised and moved to tears during the last days leading up to Carlin’s-mother’s passing. As I held her hand, there were no words that passed between us, but I felt overwhelmed with love, compassion, and care. As I looked into her eyes, it was like looking in the eyes of God. At the time, and even now, I wasn’t even sure what those words meant. Clearly, I was experiencing something in a realm beyond words.

In this time of caregiving for Carlin, I am once again experiencing the beauty, joy, and unspeakable love that passes between us and connects us both with the mystery we call God. Whatever your spiritual or religious beliefs, we all will have opportunities to become caregivers at some point in our lives.

Men are often taught to care at a distance. Early on, we are taught that being a real man involves being a successful breadwinner. The old rules told us that our work was out in the world and women’s work was at home with the children and later taking care of aging parents and often aging spouses.

I first learned a more hands-on type of caregiving when our first son, Jemal, was born on November 21, 1969. Back then fathers were not allowed in the delivery room at Kaiser hospital where I was able to be with my wife up until the last stage of the birth process. “Your job is finished now, Mr. Diamond”, the nurse told me. “You can leave now. We’ll find you in the waiting room and let you know as soon as your baby is born.”

I knew the rules and at that time of my life I was inclined to follow them. I kissed my wife and squeezed her hand as she was wheeled out the door and down the hallway to the right, while I went to the left to wait, feeling glad that I had completed my caregiving and could await the birth of the new member of our family. But something wouldn’t allow me to go through the waiting room doors. I felt a call from my unborn child saying, “I don’t want a waiting-room father. Your place is her with us.” I was startled by the words I heard in my mind, but I didn’t hesitate a moment.

I turned around and walked back the way I had come. I found the delivery room and pushed my way through the doors and took my place at the head of the table. There was no question of leaving if asked. I knew where I belonged regardless of what the rules were. Shortly thereafter our son, Jemal, was born.

As I held this tiny being in my arms for the first time, I made a promise to him that I would be a different kind of father than my father was able to be for me and to do everything I could to care for him and to care for the world he would grow up in. Two years later we adopted a 2 ½ month old African American daughter we named Angela.

Being a distant dad was never an option for me. I quickly learned the joys and challenges of being a hands-on father. I took time off from work when Jemal was born and took a stint of full-time caretaking when he was an infant and my wife wanted to take a break and visit a friend. I was terrified at first to have my wife away and have Jemal to myself thinking that mothers had some inherent knowledge about baby care that fathers lacked.

I still believe that is true, but fathers can learn and sometimes being thrown into the deep end of the caregiving pool requires that we learn fast. That was true again when Angela needed an operation when she was a year old and both my wife and I had to become full-time caretakers for her during the first two years of her life.

Caregiving is not easy. It requires us to become warriors for life. In my book, The Warrior’s Journey Home: Healing Men, Healing the Planet, I shared what I learned from meditation master Chögyam Trungpa. In his book, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, Trungpa says,

“Warriorship here does not refer to making war on others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution. Here the word ‘warrior’ is taken from the Tibetan pawo, which literally mans ‘one who is brave.’ Warriorship in this context is the tradition of human brav

He concludes,

“The key to warriorship and the first principle of Shambhala vision is not being afraid of who you are.”

Taking care of my children was my introduction to getting to know myself as never before and to a kind of warriorship I never knew existed. Taking care of aging parents was another lesson in warriorship, as is taking care of my wife as she approaches her 85th birthday and me my 80th. But we are being called to an even greater calling of caretaking—caring for Earth that is the parent of us all.

In the last chapter of The Warrior’s Journey Home, I quoted my colleague psychologist and philosopher, Sam Keen, who offered a clear statement of the challenge humanity is facing.

  • “The radical vision of the future rests on the belief that the logic that determines either our survival or our destruction is simple:
  • The new human vocation is to heal the earth.
  • We can only heal what we love.
  • We can only love what we know.
  • We can only know what we touch.”

I have been writing about this kind of caregiving in two articles on the transformations we are facing in our world today. Trungpa reminds us that the

“Shambhala vision teaches that, in the face of the world’s great problems, we can be heroic and kind at the same time. Shambhala vision is the opposite of selfishness. When we are afraid of ourselves and afraid of the seeming threat the world presents, then we become extremely selfish. We want to build our own little nests, our own cocoons, so that we can live by ourselves in a secure way.”

Trungpa goes on to say,

“But we can be much braver than that. We must try to think beyond our homes, beyond the fire burning in the fireplace, beyond sending our children to school or getting to work in the morning. We must try to think how we can help this world. If we don’t help, nobody will. It is our turn to help the world. At the same time, helping others does not mean abandoning our individual lives…In fact, you can start with yourself. The important point is to realize that you are never off duty. You can never just relax, because the whole world needs your help.”

Men have been engaged in violent conflicts for too long now. As Trungpa reminds us,

“Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution.”

Men are being called to a new kind of caregiving, a new kind of warriorship, at home and in the world. Our time is now and we are needed as never before.

If you like these articles, please share them.

Learning to Listen More, Trying to Fix It Less


Crises are opportunities to learn more about love and life. Carlin and I have been dealing with a crisis that began on March 20, 2023 when she slipped on a wet sidewalk and called me. “I fell. I need help. I’m near the corner of Mendocino and Redwood.” Luckily she was only a few blocks away and I got to her quickly and with help of a neighbor who happened to be an EMT we got her in the car and to the ER at Howard Hospital, which was only five minutes away.

In Part 1 I described the initial stages of the partial hip-replacement surgery and the small stroke that occurred during surgery that caused some memory and speech problems. In Part 2, I talked about the intimacy and exhaustion that comes with 24/7 home health care. Being a Caretaker was a new role for me and in Part 3, I described the deepening of our love that has occurs once I wholeheartedly embraced the calling.

Here, I want to talk about the challenges of letting go of the “fixer” role that has been so much a part of my identity for so long. As a therapist and marriage and family counselor one of the main complaints I hear from women is that

“he doesn’t listen to me. He always wants to fix me before I can even tell him how I’m feeling. He makes it all about him, when I need him to tune into me.”

Like most challenges as a therapist, I’ve found it much easier to help other men become better listeners than to make the changes in my own relationship. I learned my “fixer” role early. When I was five years old my father was hospitalized with what was called “a nervous breakdown,” which I didn’t understand. My uncle Harry went to visit my father every Sunday and my mother wanted me to go with him. It didn’t occur to me to ask why my mother didn’t go, but being the dutiful son I was at the time, I accompanied him.

“Why do I have to go,” I asked, in a shaky voice, holding back my tears.

“Your father needs you,” he told me. His voice was serious and his eyes told me I had an important job to do.

“What’s the matter with him?” I wanted to know.

Silence. In our family we didn’t talk about such things.

I went with my uncle for a full year trying my best to fix whatever the problem was with my father. Like most children, I felt somehow responsible for my parent’s pain, that it was my job to fix it. In my childhood fantasy, I feared if I didn’t fix my father and be the “good little man” my mother expected me to be, I wouldn’t survive. If I could fix things, everywhere would be happy and our lives would return to normal and I could be a kid again. Many of us are forced to give up our childhood at a young age and become the “adult” to parents who are dysfunctional in one way or another.

It’s Not About the Nail: You Always Try and Fix Things When I Really Want You to Listen

There is a Youtube video that has always given me a laugh, appreciation, and insight. It’s Not About the Nail helps us better understand communication, listening, and the ways men often get so focused on fixing things, we don’t take time to listen. What I’ve learned about listening from this short video and how I can apply it to being a better husband.

  • When my wife is upset, in pain, or unhappy, I immediately go into “fix it” mode.

It hurts me to see someone I love in pain and I feel I must make the problem go away. Whether I had anything to do with the problem or not, I feel it is my duty to fix it. Although the problem may be minor or serious, if I don’t fix it quick I think something terrible will happen. I act like it is a life-or-death event that only I can fix. There isn’t time to hear her feelings. I must act now.

What I need to remember to do: Take a deep breath…and then take another deep breath. Take at least three, before I open my mouth. There is a book I recent bought and am reading called STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World by Dan Lyons. In the introduction, Dan speaks truth to my fix-it-mode mind.

“I’m telling you this as a friend, so please don’t take it the wrong way. But I want you to shut the fuck up. Learning to shut the fuck up will change your life.”

It has certainly helped improve my relationship. Sometimes I have to, literally, bite my tongue to keep my immediate reaction to say something helpful. But with practice, it gets easier.

  • From my perspective, the problem seemed obvious, and the solution self-evident.

Not only with clients I have seen over the years, but with my most intimate relationships, the problems the woman was dealing with seemed obviously harmful to her. The solution to her problem seemed obvious to me. I just had to give her the solution or solve the problem for her and everything would be fine. Often the solution I offered had to do with treating me nicer or for her to stop doing something which was obviously wrong.

I was sure I knew best and if she would just accept the logic of my solution, everything would be fine and she would thank me for my wisdom. This perspective never seemed to work. Too often I assumed the reason it didn’t work was because she was…pick a word, too– emotional, stubborn, foolish, confused, resistant, etc.

What I need to remember to do: Let go of my obsession to be right, so that I will be loved. I need to let go of my inflated ego that tells me I know best and if I tell her the right answer to her problem she will thank me in the long run. That approach rarely works for children and never for adult women. Even if the problem is obvious and removing the nail will help, my repeatedly telling her will only bring the response, “It is NOT about the nail.” And it really is not about the nail, it is about listening and respecting the one you love.

  • Though I would deny it, there is big part of me that believes that men know best.

Like everyone I grew up in a society that has a bias in favor of one sex–during my formative years it was usually men—and under stress I usually default to my male biases. I still am influenced by my childhood T.V. heroes who were almost all males and shows like Father Knows Best. Consciously, I know that is hog wash, but deep down inside I carry the responsibilities of the world on my shoulders and if I don’t know best I better “fake it, ‘til I make it.”

What I need to remember to do: There are certain things I am better at doing and certain things Carlin is better at doing. But life is complex, problems have multiple causes, and solutions work best when we figure things out ourselves or we ask for help and are willing to listen to the person who gives us the advice we are asking to receive. When I am convinced I know best, I don’t wait to be asked, I just jump in and give her the benefit of my manly life experience, as though her womanly life experience didn’t count. Learning to listen to my wife requires that I quiet the voice in my mind and tell it to just, please, S T F U.

The End of the U.S. and the World as We Know It and The Truth About Our Collective Future Part 2


In part 1, I talked about the reality that the U.S. and the rest of the world is out of balance with the laws of nature and we are headed for a crash. I also described the vision I was given thirty years ago in a sweat-lodge ceremony led by a Native American elder, where I saw the sinking of the ship of civilization and the people who got off the ship into lifeboats. I introduced you to the work of my colleague Margaret Wheatley and quoted from her new book, Who Do We Choose to Be? Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity. Here I want to delve more deeply into Meg’s work that she has developed since the 1970s. She is certainly one of the experts in the field and a woman I trust and respect.

One of the books I’ve written is called Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places. One of the themes of Meg Wheatley’s work might be called “Looking for hope in all the wrong places.” Wheatley says,

“The need to be hopeful rises in direct proportion to our growing despair as we recognize the destruction of planet, peoples, species and the future. This relationship between hope and despair is guaranteed–they’re two sides of the same coin. Buddhist wisdom has warned us for millennia that hope and fear are one emotional state: when what was hoped for fails to materialize, we flip into fear or despair. Motivated by hope, we end up in despair; the greater the hope, the greater the despair. Those who seek hope as their motivation for activism are doomed to suffer this disabling dynamic.”

Many people, me included, have been afraid to lose hope, fearing that without hope, all is lost. At age 80, I’ve come to peace with my own mortality. I know I will die someday and clearly I have more years behind me than ahead of me. But, my wife, Carlin, and I have six grown children, seventeen grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. I’ve been clinging to hope that somehow, someway, humans would get our acts together and learn to clean up the mess we’ve created before it’s too late. I want my children and grandchildren to live in a world of clean air and water, where there are wild animals and wild places that have not been destroyed by human greed, and one where conflicts can be solved without the constant battles between us and them. Humans have created these problems. Surely humans can figure out how to fix them.

Healing Our Addiction to Hopium and Mourning What’s Been Lost

Wheatley says we are addicted to hopium (irrational or unwarranted optimism). Although individual humans have contributed to our present problems, individual humans cannot turn back the clock and fix things. We have contributed to systemic changes such as environmental damage that now has a life of its own. We have passed a tipping point and there is no turning back.

“Many tipping points have ‘tipped’ in Earth’s systems because of human-induced climate change,”

says Wheatley,

“a terrifying list of changes that are irreversible and unstoppable. Even if all human activity ceased right now, systems have shifted into new regimes and consequences of tipping will continue for decades, centuries, millennia.”

Wheatley offers this stark, yet honest, truth, that we must accept if we are going to move ahead.

“If we think we can reverse the trajectory of the changes now cascading through the Anthropocene, we’re assuming that human willpower takes precedence, and is far more powerful, than the natural laws and dynamics responsible for Earth’s current state… Our strong will and our increased consciousness will not suddenly shift eight billion people from fear to trust, from threat to possibility, from self-protection to service… There is zero possibility that our awareness can change the threat response that has now taken hold.”

Wheatley says those who she calls, Warriors for the Human Spirit, must join with others to create “Islands of Sanity.” She says,

“The global context is that we live in a life-destroying culture that cannot be changed.”

This is a hard one for us change-makers to accept, that on a global scale, we cannot change the destructive patterns that have been set in motion. They need to play themselves out and we must accept our own limitations. It won’t be enough to change individuals, we must create communities of sanity in an insane world.

“Our task,” says Wheatley, “is to create the conditions, both internally and within our sphere of influence, where sanity prevails, where people can recall and practice the best human qualities of generosity, caring, creativity, and community… We know we are an island surrounded by seas of increasing turbulence, tsunamis that suddenly wipe out years of good work and destroy possibility. We know that we have no control over these forces, and so we gather together and build an island. The strongest protection is in our shared identity and our commitment to norms and practices that nourish the human spirit.”

It would be great if there were actual islands we could go to get off the sinking ship of civilization, but there is no place to hide. This is what billionaires are trying to do when they buy parts of the planet and hope to separate themselves from the rest of us. Rather than building islands of sanity, they simply bring their own insanity with them.

Wheatley says,

“To build an island, the work is twofold. We must stay alert to encroaching destructive forces, such things as policies that divert our attention or negatively impact how we work together, crises badly handled in the greater community, or overbearing bureaucratic demands. And we must attend to strengthening our community, noticing when internal frictions develop or decisions create unintentional negative consequences.”

She concludes saying,

“Creating and leading an Island of Sanity is extremely hard work, and I do not minimize its difficulty. I’ve watched leaders make it work and also observed their exhaustion. But they, like me, don’t feel there’s any other alternative. We must do what we can, where we are, with what we have. We must commit to doing all that we can, using all that we know, for as long as we can. Though these are terrible times, we can do our best to create work that invokes the human spirit, work that is inherently meaningful, no matter what.”

The Journey Home: Becoming a Warrior For the Human Spirit

In 1994, my book The Warrior’s Journey Home: Healing Men, Healing the Planet was published. I drew on the work of meditation master Chögyam Trungpa and his book, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior. He said,

“Warriorship here does not refer to making war on others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution. Here the word ‘warrior’ is taken from the Tibetan pawo, which literally mans ‘one who is brave.’ Warriorship in this context is the tradition of human bravery, or the tradition of fearlessness. The North American Indians had such a tradition, and it also existed in South American Indian societies. The key to warriorship and the first principle of Shambhala vision is not being afraid of who you are.”

Trungpa continues,

“Shambhala vision teaches that, in the face of the world’s great problems, we can be heroic and kind at the same time. Shambhala vision is the opposite of selfishness. When we are afraid of ourselves and afraid of the seeming threat the world presents, then we become extremely selfish. We want to build our own little nests, our own cocoons, so that we can live by ourselves in a secure way.”

[That’s what many billionaires today and many others with fewer resources are doing in the face of the world’s problems].

Trungpa goes on to say,

“But we can be much braver than that. We must try to think beyond our homes, beyond the fire burning in the fireplace, beyond sending our children to school or getting to work in the morning. We must try to think how we can help this world. If we don’t help, nobody will. It is our turn to help the world. At the same time, helping others does not mean abandoning our individual lives…In fact, you can start with yourself. The important point is to realize that you are never off duty. You can never just relax, because the whole world needs your help.”

In the last chapter of The Warrior’s Journey Home, “Warriors Without War,” I quoted my colleague psychologist and philosopher, Sam Keen, who offered a clear statement of the challenge humanity was facing.

“The radical vision of the future rests on the belief that the logic that determines either our survival or our destruction is simple:
  • The new human vocation is to heal the earth.
  • We can only heal what we love.
  • We can only love what we know.
  • We can only know what we touch.”

We may have had a chance to turn things around thirty years ago. But climate scientists tell us we have passed critical tipping points. Clearly, humanity is even more out of touch with ourselves, each other, and the Earth we all share. We have turned our backs on the facts and personal beliefs trump knowledge in our decision-making. We have difficulty loving ourselves and find it impossible to build bridges with those whose beliefs differ from our own, and we continue to destroy our life support system rather than healing it.

In exploring human history, Meg Wheatley recognizes that at times of trouble, groups of enlightened souls arise.

“Warriors appear at certain historic moments when something valuable is being threatened and needs protection,”

says Wheatley.

We are living in such times. Humans don’t have the power to change what has been set in motion. As I said in part 1, all complex civilizations collapse, usually within ten generations. We can’t stop the coming collapse. What those who feel called can do is become Warriors of the Human Spirit (or create your own name for what you feel called to do.)

“We live in a natural world with its own laws and dynamics,”

says Wheatley.

“What we set in motion by our self-serving beliefs and behaviors cannot be stopped by new levels of awareness or collective mediators. Nature doesn’t lie. She observes her own laws, and we failed to believe her.”

For me, Meg Wheatley offers us guidance and direction that fits with the vision I had in the sweat lodge ceremony so many years ago.

“As Warriors for the Human Spirit, our only weapons are compassion and insight. We choose to stand apart from the current destructive dynamics and create good human societies wherever we can, Islands of Sanity. We know we are only a small minority, the few people who answer the call and prepare themselves to preserve and protect what is most valuable, what must not be lost.”

Learn more about our Moonshot for Mankind. We’ve brought together a group of colleagues who recognize the problems and are coming together to serve.

What We Know About Depression and Teen-age Boys


Teen-age boys are much more likely to express their sadness through anger than are girls.

Traditional school counseling and therapy are often not best suited for connecting with young males. Finding something to “do” together makes talking much easier.

Even though teen-agers, and boys in particular, often act hostile or indifferent to our offers to help, they are hungry to have someone who really wants to understand them.

Remember that what seem like “small” slights can seem “huge” when you’re a teenager. Our self-esteem and connection to others is very vulnerable. It doesn’t take much—a negative word, an indifferent stare, a lack of appreciation, a rebuff from a girl we like—to throw us into a tailspin.

Being laughed at, teased, or humiliated is one of the most crushing experiences young people go through, particularly males. The resulting experience of shame is at the core of much of the violence we see in young males. “I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed and humiliated, disrespected and ridiculed, “says James Gilligan, M.D., author of Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and It’s Causes.[i]

Sex, success, and self-esteem are very much intertwined for teen-age boys. We need to find ways to reach out to them and discuss these often taboo topics. One of the techniques I used with my teenage son (on separate occasions with my teenage daughter) was to get him in the car to take him somewhere. I would always take the long way around and use the time to talk to him about all the things I wished my father had said to me when I was his age. Usually he was silent or would make disgusted or disgusting sounds. But he couldn’t escape and later as an adult we joked about it and he told me they were even helpful at times.

While suggestions of suicide should always be taken seriously, we need to be particularly concerned about young males. They are much less likely to let us know that they are becoming increasingly depressed and much more likely to complete a suicide attempt than are young females.

There are a number of researchers and clinicians who work with boys that recognize the different ways boys express their unhappiness. “We see boys who, frightened or saddened by family discord,” say Dr. Dan Kindlon and Dr. Michael Thompson in their book Raising Can: Protecting The Emotional Life of Boys, “experience those feelings only as mounting anger or an irritable wish that everyone would ‘just leave me alone.’ Shamed by school problems or stung by criticism, they lash out or withdraw emotionally.”[ii]

“In so many cases, what in the teenage years may look like a bad boy is really a sad boy, whose underground pain may lead him to become extremely dangerous to others, or much more likely, to himself,” says Dr. William S. Pollack, author of Real Boys’ Voices. Tragically, boys rarely ‘attempt’ suicide; when they reach out for a knife, a rope, or a gun, generally they are not crying for help. Rather, they are very much trying to get the job done.”[iii]

[i] James Gilligan. Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1996, 119.

[ii] Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson. Raising Cain: Protecting The Emotional Life of Boys. New York: Ballantine Publishing Group, 1999, 3.

[iii] William S. Pollack with Todd Shuster. Real Boys’ Voices. New York: Random House, 2000, 148.

Where is the Most Peaceful Place on the Planet?


A few years ago my wife and I spent three months in New Zealand. We were struck by the beauty of the country, the slow pace of life, and the friendliness of the people. We had a wonderful experience on December 21st, my birthday. My whole life I’ve celebrated the shortest, darkest day of the year. But in the Southern hemisphere, of course, it’s the longest, brightest day of the year.

We were walking downtown and had planned to have dinner at a nice restaurant. It was late afternoon and my wife said she wanted to do a little shopping before the shops closed. I chuckled to myself and thought, “It’s 4 days before Christmas. The shops will be open late so they can collect the last shopping dollar. She just needs some time away from me.”

We agreed to meet at the restaurant and went our separate ways. As it got close to 5:00 I was surprised to see the shops closing. I couldn’t believe it. This would never happen in the U.S. When I asked a shopkeeper why they weren’t staying open late to make more money, he looked at me like I was a little daft. “We like spending time with our families and friends,” he informed me. “Have a nice day.”

Carlin and I had a wonderful dinner at a beautiful restaurant in the South Island town of Invercargill. We agreed that if there was anyplace in the world we’d like to live, other than our own little town of Willits, California, it would be in New Zealand.

If you don’t live in Willits and are looking for a beautiful and peaceful place to live, you may want to consider New Zealand. It has been rated as the most peaceful nation on Earth by Vision of Humanity (www.VisionofHumanity.org), an Australian-based research group that counts former President Jimmy Carter, Ted Turner, and the Dalai Lama among its endorsers.

After New Zealand, the top 10 most peaceful nations are Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Sweden, Japan, Canada, Finland and Slovenia.

Where does the U.S. rank as a peaceful country? According to the Institute for Economics and Peace that rated the relative tranquility of 144 nations according to 23 "indicators" --including gun sales, the number of homicides, the size of the military, the potential for terrorism and the number of people in jail—we rank 83rd.

To get a better sense of exactly where the U.S. fits in the peaceful scheme of things, we are less peaceful than Senegal, Bolivia, and Ukraine (ranked 80, 81, and 82 respectively). But more peaceful than Kazakhstan, Brazil, and Rwanda (ranked 84, 85, and 86).

But if you thought that living in a peaceful country was just good for men, women, children, and other living things, you’d be wrong. It’s also good for business. "Because they can work better with others, peaceful countries can constructively work together on solving some of our most pressing economic, social and environmental problems. Indeed, peace is the prerequisite to helping solve today's major challenges, such as food and water scarcity, decreasing biodiversity or climate change," said Clyde McConaghy, a former advertising director and business executive who developed the index with entrepreneur Steve Killelea.

"Peace is a concrete aim that can be measured and valued, not just in social terms but in economic terms. There is a clear correlation between the economic crisis and the decline in peace," Mr. McConaghy continued, adding that peace tends to promote productivity and trade.

Given our present economic crisis, perhaps one of the best things we could do in the U.S. to stimulate the economy is to become more like New Zealand and less like Iraq (the least peaceful country of the 144 surveyed). Let me see, when was the last time New Zealand invaded another country to secure access to cheap oil?

©2023 Jed Diamond

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©2023 Jed Diamond

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Wealth can't buy health, but health can buy wealth. - Henry David Thoreau


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