Why happiness remains elusive in South Africa

The end of this month has arrived and we acknowledged that the month of October encouraged many of us to think about mental awareness, cancer, the girl child and food.

The month alerted us to World Food Day; World Mental Health Day; and Breast Cancer Awareness Month amidst others.

The continual challenges of being a South African persist because of external influencing factors determined by our society and the continual deviance, escalating criminal activities at all sects of society and the political discord that has become a norm for South Africa.

The recent World Mental Health Day was acknowledged but failed to inspire us to delve into why depression and suicide have been on the increase in South Africa.

A safe environment has been identified as a key indicator of happiness, as well as access to basic resources such as water, electricity, food, education, and shelter.

The benchmark of what determines a happy life has shifted from personal happiness, good health, strong social connectivity, ethical values, a sense of purpose, and a financially comfortable life to extreme material wealth, regardless of how it is earned and at what cost.

We lost ethical and highly valued individuals such as Babita Deokaran for whistle-blowing about one of the largest corruption syndicates at Tembisa Hospital in Gauteng.

Financial wealth has been admired and prioritised by many South Africans with the lack of regard for the loss of state funds, the recourse after conviction, ethics, values and the precedence of corrupt influential individuals in politics and business.

The perception that money is the central founding component of a happy life is becoming more and more dominant because of the heightened corruption incidents amidst our leadership in South Africa.

Money is now perceived as the only doorway to living a happy life and undermines the importance of other elements that can be very satisfying and fulfilling for many South Africans. Many South Africans from all class groups are increasingly mentally disturbed by all the wrongdoings that we hear of and experience on a daily basis.

The impact of public funds being stolen means that the quality of medical and educational services is rapidly declining and these services are becoming less accessible to the average South African.

Financial pressures are increasing for many working class individuals and many are left feeling hopeless, miserable and unsure of how to manage the wellbeing of themselves and their families.

World Mental Health Day also highlighted the measures required to treat mental illnesses and its prevalence in South Africa, but it failed to adequately inform us about the key components of well-being, happiness and personal contentment or fulfilment.

There are multiple indicators that determine the mental health ranking of a nation as many studies involve varied use of criteria.

Countries that have been ranked with the highest ratio of positive mental well-being include Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland, whereas countries such as Portugal, Greenland, Tunisia have indicated that they have high rations of depression amongst their citizenry.

Rankings are inclusive of factors such as government budget and expenditure on mental healthcare, life expectancy and leisure time. More importantly these countries have committed to meeting the basic needs of their citizens and have relevant policies and measures in place to mitigate the challenges in their service delivery systems.

South Africa has too many challenges at present that are impacting the mental well-being of our nation. More than one third of our population is now experiencing mental health issues which include depression, anxiety and substance abuse problems.

The bigger setback is that we have minimal measures in place to lessen the impact of these illnesses and fail to assist people with coping mechanisms.

A big segment of our population does not receive any medical healthcare to treat this illness, which only leads to further exacerbation of the condition and a deepening crisis overall.

The unhealthy mindset is a key root of unproductivity and can contribute to continual deviant and criminal activity as a means of survival. Many individuals diagnosed with depression fail to retain their employment in the long term and often plan poorly for themselves financially.

Violence, physical and verbal bullying, which results in trauma within our schools contributes towards the growing number of teenagers and youth in country who now suffer with mental health issues.

The youth are particularly vulnerable, and in 2023, it was reported by UNICEF that globally, young people have become more prone to consider suicide and experience depression or anxiety. Drug dependency and the lack of access to relevant healthcare professionals have contributed greatly to an escalating global statistic of 65% of the World’s youth having being diagnosed with a mental health illness.

South Africa has to quickly put measures in place so that the political and socio-economic instability is lessened. Our leadership needs to look beyond their need to become financially wealthy and consider the impact of our nation as a collective.

*The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.

DAILY NEWS