Reply #76: Our minds have not evolved to live in modern America [View All]

[Nikia]

A lot of our evolution as homo sapiens took place when humans lived in small groups of less than 100 people. Those people all knew each other and felt responsibility towards one another. Although it was a more dangerous world, you could count on your group helping you out if you needed it.
In a way, some of the things that we value as modern Americans are also stressors. We value knowledge and not being ignorant. Before mass information though, we would know little about the going ons of anything outside of our group and occaionally our neighbors. We wouldn't worry about wars on the other side of the world or anything like that. As a related effect of mass information, we are constantly exposed to advertising that is designed to make us feel like there is something wrong with us.
We also value freedom, but freedom means that you have to make choices and somethimes those choices are difficult or don't work out right. Also valuing independence and personal responsibility, it means that those bad choices are all our fault.
All those factors, make it more likely that our brains will become imbalanced because thoughts are extremely important to our brain physiology. What happens when our brains become imbalanced and we have problems in modern America. Often, our families and friends, who we might have, abandon us. They tell us that it is our fault, that we made bad decisions. It turns out that sometimes we would have gotten better if they would have done the opposite and given us extra care. That's how we evolved.