Fed Up? You're Not Alone.
There seems to be a serious issue in the UK (and around the world!) at the moment. Whomever I seem to speak to lately, whether it be people at work, at my local supermarket, friends or family members, I keep hearing the same thing...'I'm fed up'. It seems to be the overall sentiment in the UK right now. So, what's it stemming from? Here's what it comes down to when I break it down.
1. The Cost of Living
Quality of life in the UK seems to be declining. Gone seems to be the days of 'treating yourself' and 'working to pay the bills' seems to be the new moto. I speak to people every day just to get a gist of how they feel and what action points they're making and it's actually quite surprising. Some are working in jobs they may not necessarily enjoy anymore but holding on for the pay check due to the unstable job market. Some have actually sold their homes and have decided to either move abroad or buy outside of London to reduce costs and escape the concrete jungle. Other's have started working two jobs, to help keep their options open. The struggle is real. From your weekly shop, to gas and electricity, housing - it all seems to be going up in price, without the same happening to pay cheques.
2. Pressure on Public Services
From the NHS, to schooling, there seems to be increased pressure all around. I've spoken to healthcare professionals and they seem to be pretty exhausted. Less staff, longer hours, feeling unappreciated. Teaching staff are saying the exact same thing. Working longer hours, taking work home, no support in class (with most TA's being inexistent nowadays), the pressure falls all on them. Yet the workload keeps increasing. As parents, we can see things changing in schools, we just feel out of control and at times a little stuck with the current system. Taxes are going up, yet nothing seems to be improving around us.
3. Distrust in the Political System
Where do I start with this one. There have been a series of events over the past few years which have contributed to this distrust of our government and the governments across the world. We see this with the increased number of protests taking place on a mass scale. Why? Our governments moves from social gatherings during lockdown, affairs, vaccines that may have needed more testing before being used, cost of living hikes to misinformation and spending public money on things the public doesn't agree with or benefit from (i.e. weapons of mass destruction to fuel destruction across other countries, supporting the wrong cause). The list seems to go on, but people are definately waking up and speaking up about these series of events and bringing these concerns to light.
4. Climate Change
People are talking about this and noticing change in the climate and in our skies. If you know, you know. That's a completely different post in itself but in short, it's something many people I know are aware of and highly concerned about recently.
In conclusion, we have all started to see things a bit differently. I'm not sure if I would call it being 'woke' but it's definitely changing out there and people are feeling it. So what could we do to change things, or at least try?
My Recommendations
- Put pressure on our governments, speak up!
- Ask questions. Where does our tax money go, what are we funding?
- If that all fails, move abroad (I'm not sure that would be any better but it's an option).
- If that all fails, do we just bite our tongues and prod along?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.