Comparisons

[dryfter]

Comparison between Adelaide & Melbourne (where I visited during the recent holiday) and London:
Almost everyone I visited there seemed fairly relaxed, and happy.
In London, I swear half of my friends are stressed about something or other at any given moment.

However, those views may be tinted by my feelings and projections.

For those of you reading this, I'm interested to know what you think?
Do you think that a significant (say, 30-40% or more) number of your friends are stressed and/or unhappy? Or not?

Comments

[tbrd.livejournal.com]

Right now?

I think most of my friends are stressed or unhappy about something. This is not normally the case.

At the moment, 5 of us are moving house, 3 of us have reasonably recently become single, various folk are having relationship difficulties, at least three of us have major work-related problems, one of us is about to be deported and no one seems to have had anything exceptionally good happen to them lately to counter-balance it all.

Give it a month and we'll all be back on track. It doesn't help that it's the middle of winter and that it's cold and wet and dark. Seems to me like it's much easier to be happy when it's sunny.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

Do I score points for having three out of those five problems ?

[tbrd.livejournal.com]

Both Robin and I seem to have 4, and not the same 4, so I think we're doing better than you.

Well. When I say 'better', I mean our lives have been completely turned upside down, and I suspect that it's going to get worse before it gets better.

It wouldn't be quite so bad if we weren't housemates.

Boy, I'm being pretty negative today. Anyone want to give me some good news?

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

It's going to be spring soon. Although to be news it probably has to be new.

[lusciousa.livejournal.com]

Anyone want to give me some good news?

Lemmie look...nope, sorry. All I got is bad news and a cup full of tears. I will however keep them all to myself as you seem to have quite enough.

[merlinc.livejournal.com]

I will however keep them all to myself as you seem to have quite enough.

Hey, since when does that help things!

[merlinc.livejournal.com]

Huzzzah! At least we win at something :)

[redcountess]

Definitely.

[ex-mother-ca391.livejournal.com]

Everyone I know is stressed. I'm sure location has nothing to do with it.

[juliet]

Hrm. Atm, there's a reasonably high occurrence of this. But I think to be fair you'd need to compare (as per someone above) with how everyone is in, say, July or thereabouts. January is not a good month (even for me, & it has my birthday in it :-) ), being all cold & dark & so forth.

And as you say, there may also be a bias in that you were maybe less stressed when over there (because on holiday), and so perhaps less likely to pick up on stressedness; and also because your friends were pleased to see you cos you haven't been back for a while, so likely to be bouncy & putting any stress on hold for a bit.

[lusciousa.livejournal.com]

It's also summer, and bright, and warm there now.

[welikegoats.livejournal.com]

Melbourne has daft hook junctions to allow the trams past.

[merlinc.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'd like to see you win an argument with a tram!

[merlinc.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'm coming out of the second most fucked up and stressful periods of my life. (It'll be over by the end of Feb).

So I'm a tad stressed and unhappy at the moment. :)

But on average, yeah I reckon people in London are more stressed than Melbourne or Adelaide or South America. I think it comes with the territory of a mega-city with 7 million people in it (all of them in your way every single day). London is a huge city and just going about your day to day life requires more effort than normal.

I visited Oxford last year, and I had a lovely time, and a nice calm relaxing train ride home. But within minutes of being at Paddington station I was back in high!powered London!mode because that was the only way I was going to get where I was going.

And the magnifying effect of the winter cannot be overlooked. I'm very interested at to how my mood is next winter - I've only been here for two of them, and I'm already detecting a trend. Even discounting all the stuff going on in my life, there's a little bit extra that wasn't there during Melbourne winters - I suspect it might be connected with the current batch of 4:30pm sunsets. Maybe.

[juliet]

OTOH, one of the years I lived in Oxford was the most miserable I've had as an adult (so bad that I wound up on SSRIs for a couple of months, in fact). Whereas living in London I really don't find all that stressful, & I certainly wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Mind you, I was brought up here, so maybe that helps.

The darkness is a much bigger thing than I think people allow for. But hey, the flipside is lovely long evenings in the summer :-)

[merlinc.livejournal.com]

I like the night time - I just don't like it to start at 4pm :)

Misery is expected to peak on Monday

[nicky-j.livejournal.com]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4187183.stm

what a great headline. welcome back, guys! :-) x

[martling.livejournal.com]

Edinburgh versus London: ditto...

[daneel-olivaw.livejournal.com]

Christ, it's doom round here at the moment. I'm the most down I've been in ages, and I'll leave you to establish the state of the rest of my immediate circle for yourself. You are not imagining it.

[invadergaz.livejournal.com]

Anyone been to birmingham recently? Just take a look at their shiny (actually, it is shiny) city centre, and you feel calm and relaxed and entriely willing to fulfill your gawd-given duties as a consumer.
London's just grit, fumes and hassle. Almost makes you long for the derilique environment that is Elektrowerkz -At least there the dirt seems somehow welcoming.

[nassus.livejournal.com]

Yay to Adelaide for quality of life. I'm generally a lot less stressed when I'm home here (though I love the UK). Blue skies, sunshine, fresh air, being able to drive around easily, everything pretty cheap, more days of sunshine and more daylight per year. It's no wonder!