But what if the average, or the norm, is wrong? What if it is out of wack? Well, then it would indeed not be good to be well-adapted.

Before, education by our parents and the school system taught people essential values such as respect, honesty, and integrity. Today, this focus has seemingly shifted towards coming out on top and attaining material wealth at all costs.

People want everything these days. They want to have children, but they also want to have as much free time as the people without children and to have no responsibilities just like the children. They want to have a lot of money but don’t want to work long hours or put in the effort that goes along with achieving such material wealth.

The moral of the story, people want everything these days. All the benefits without all the disadvantages. But of course, this is a utopia, since choosing is losing. We must decide what we find most important, and live with the consequences, both the good and the bad ones.

Weight problems

For example, we know that an average American individual is overweight. Even more worrying is that the average American person seems to be inching closer to being obese. Then does that mean it is appropriate to call Americans healthy if they weigh around the average, within the norm? Even if weighing around the average means being overweight? I would say no, and this is the case for many other things as well.

Keep in mind that I’m not trying to ridicule the American population. I’m merely trying to point out that it can sometimes be a fallacy to rely on averages and norms. Since norms are not always a measure of true health.

The weight example of the American population is just one example of the average and norm not being an accurate representation of our physical health. It is not only limited to physical health, but it applies to a variety of mental health subjects, and even life choices as well.

Social media

While it is nowadays considered normal to spend many hours on social media each day, this was not the case for the generation that came before us. And while it might be considered normal now, I don’t think that it’s particularly healthy. Like with anything, it has to be done in moderation for it to be healthy. Abundance is not healthy.

Spending copious amounts of time on social media can twist our sense of reality. It can make us overly reliant on external validation. It can make us insecure by placing too much weight on the opinion of others, especially since we often don’t know those people personally who we have as friends on social media platforms.

Questionable ethics and values

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society when our ethics and values are all out of wack.

Our society frequently rewards morally questionable things such as lying and scheming. And while this might have been a thing in the past as well, I don’t think that it contributes to a well functioning and cooperative society in the long-run.

People who regularly lie frequently reap short-term rewards or get promoted because they run away with other people’s accomplishments or simply because the manager wants to promote an underperforming employee. Yet, I still think that lying is detrimental to oneself and others over time.

Needless to say, over time, the employees’ who got their accomplishments stolen away by ambitious and devious coworkers will experience a drop in motivation and productivity.

On the other hand, promoting away the underperforming employee will wreak havoc in another part of the organization instead of solving the problem because the cause of the problem, which is the employee, simply gets switched to another part of the company. But at least one department is rid of the difficulty, right?

Material wealth, clout chasing, fame, and glory

Is being obsessed with material wealth healthy? Or with fame? Glory? Is it a good thing to be a clout chaser? These are all common things in Western society. So common that the issue gets downplayed and sometimes even normalized.

A lot of people want the nicest car, the biggest house, and the most expensive jewelry to show off their superiority and to feel better about themselves and their miserable existence.

Everything needs to be fun

Another popular trend that isn’t helpful in my opinion is that everything has to be fun. It is certainly true that it’s more enjoyable to do things that we like. And it for sure helps to motivate us in the long run if we do something that we care for and enjoy.

But sometimes, we need to do some things that we don’t necessarily like to learn valuable skills or to hone our abilities to attain future success.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say you enjoy playing football, but you don’t enjoy cardio. Well, chances are large that you will need to train your cardiovascular endurance to be competitive and become better at football since it requires good conditioning to be successful.

In this particular case, the football player will need to spend time training their conditioning by running, swimming, cycling, or another form of cardio in order to be successful.

This is not limited to our hobbies, either, it applies to literally every facet of our lives.