Why are so many of us depressed? Could it be that the problem is less individual and more communal? Is it global? And, if so, what has kept some individuals/countries immune?

A couple of weeks ago, my company, Young Living, hosted an International Marketing summit. Young Living is growing moderately in the United States, but more dramatically in our International markets: Europe, Japan, and Australia. So, the purpose of the summit, or so we Americans thought, was to provide US brand communication standards to these world offices for implementation. We put together our presentations, wrote our mission statements, bound our style guide, and we put it all out there with what turned out to be a naive sense of pride.

It turns out we were kind of late to the game. In the void that was our marketing effort, the International offices had taken it upon themselves to innovate on their own. Still dependent on us for superior photography, they stayed solidary to the US corporate office; but in matters of product marketing, each market presented deceptively small and effective ideas that humbled us. Why didn’t WE think of that?!

I think I know why: We were arrogant. More importantly; we were depressed. Even our leadership, on every level in this country, was arrogant and depressed. As someone who has experienced depression and it’s associated side-effects, I can attest to the isolated, defensive arrogance it can breed. In some ways, it’s narcissism.

Without going too much into narcissism (I assume everyone reading this has google, or similar), the problem with everyone being at least somewhat narcissistic (and, indeed, our leaders more acutely so), is the precarious nature of the race to the top of the corporate ladder. We had become less concerned with what we could do for our company and more concerned with what the company could do for us. And failing that sought-after vindication, we left old companies for new ones in search of some other route to the "top". We sulked in our cubicles, convinced that our individual corporate struggles were unfair to us alone. We didn’t bother to look across the hallway and notice our like-minded peers. Or, if we did, our discussions were disempowered discourse as to the unfair nature of our departmental microcosmos or even microcosmical companies/corporations.

Anyone who wasn’t depressed was simply arrogantly leading us off a cliff. Alas, maybe they, too, were depressed. In any event, we blindly and sheepishly followed, convinced there was no other way to make it "in this world". The film, Office Space, spoke to us for reasons we couldn’t describe beyond the "that’s so true!" conviction. I wonder how far back this depression dates.

The depressive arrogance is evident in every corner of our society, from the Hubris that has been the United States’ borrowed pride, to disparate religious institutions, to the "me me me" attitudes in our marketplace, advertising, and our families. It’s contagious. We see others "having it all" and intuitively strive for the same. I’m not a parent, but I do wonder, should we be surprised when our children act in kind? Won’t it do us all some good to lead with humility?

I guess I could segway into the argument for centrist politics, but I’ve been officially labeled insane by my close peers for suggesting that this radical centrism could be our awakening. I’ll reserve my rant for the series, "This Wasn’t Just Any Election" such that it’s title alone can serve to warn those nay-sayers against reading it. Is that a narcissistic rant?