Promoting and protecting the health of the population is a core task of the government. However, this is not only about ensuring an accessible, high-quality and affordable healthcare system, but also about healthy diet and lifestyle, environment and thus prevention.
Box 3 tax change
On that second piece, it will not come as a bolt from the blue that I think the government is not doing this job well. For instance, little to nothing is being done to improve our 'obesogenic environment full of temptation' to weaken and increase motivation for healthy behaviour among citizens.
There has been discussion about that before, but in this column I want to talk about something else, namely our mental resilience, or stress resistance.
When coaching people in this area, I not only look at a healthy physical to increase this resilience, but especially the mental part. In that mental part, it is very of importance that the 'basic human needs' are met. If this is not the case, then mental resilience can implode and people who are sometimes not at all highly charged with external stress can still fall into severe burnout end up.
Basic needs that I rate highly in this regard are: Having control and challenge, being unique and connected, growing and learning and last but not least having a sense of purpose. It is precisely in these basic needs and core values that the government has a huge finger on the pulse, but this is actually rarely discussed or taken into account when shaping policy.
Bad for mental resilience
To clarify this, I will share a bit about my personal situation.
Indeed, last week I went hugely out of my mind over the Box-3 tax plan that was passed in the second chamber. Of course, much preceded this.
At the beginning of my entrepreneurship, I was able to apply for a mortgage on the basis of submitting three financial statements. Unfortunately, this amount was not high enough to get a nice flat for sale in a sound manner. I chose to rent. Over the years, working hard made it possible to apply for higher and higher mortgages every year. Unfortunately, the house price rose even faster, so I just couldn't manage it every time without taking a huge risk. I did not dare to do this and so I did not obtain a property.
Well then what is a nice 'plan b' to be able to build up a nice pension one day and perhaps make the leap to buying a house one day? Right, you start investing in assets like equities, bitcoin and precious metals to not only compensate for inflation by the government's additional printing of money, but also hopefully make a profit for your future. So this is what I have been doing for several years.
However, if this insane box-3 plan goes through in the year 2028, this strategy is also going to fail for me. Being taxed at 36 per cent on a paper profit when you don't want to sell your assets at all leads to a mega cash flow problem in good years (resulting in just rock-bottom expropriation).
And yes, of course I can think of tricks again and maybe the plan will be shot down still in the next few years, but my concern here for a moment is its impact on the basic needs of me as a human being.
These antics undermine my sense of control, growth, sense of purpose and thus my stress resilience.
Our core values under pressure
I think my story has given you some idea of the impact of political decisions on life and resilience to stress. This will be different for everyone, but for me, politics is demolishing our core values more than ever:
- Control: You want to have a sense that laws and rules are well and fairly established and give legal certainty for many years. Based on that, you want to be able to strategise for the future and have a sense of autonomy. In today's times, the rules are increasingly being changed during the game so you don't know where you stand and therefore trust the government less.
- Challenge: A little challenge is good, but if politics makes it too hard for you, it can become too much.
- Being unique: If regulations are not tailor-made, this feeling is undermined.
- Being connected: When politicians use divide-and-rule methods and deliberately set citizens against each other to push things through, it is bad for the connection in society. The media's polarisation games to play on the reptilian brain in order to gather clicks and views are also insufficiently curbed. Digitalisation can also make for less 'real connection'.
- Growing and learning: If the government wants to keep citizens small, growth will be stunted. Technological 'advances' like artificial intelligence should not cause people to learn less. This really becomes an important issue to keep an eye on for the government.
- Meaning: Meaningfulness is not just about meaning in your life, but also setting purpose and direction. The government, in particular, should not make the last two parts of meaning too difficult by capricious policies from panicky micromanagement instead of working on solid future-proof plans.
Conclusion
It is more important than ever to realise that many of our core values are under pressure. If you want to level up or maintain your stress resilience, you might want to check with yourself whether all the basic needs mentioned above are sufficiently fulfilled. If they are not, try to fulfil them more anyway. It really can be small things that make you feel empowered.
And yes, the things you cannot change anyway, you should not dwell on them too long. Letting go is the motto, but don't let go of your core values and fill them in with something else to stay 'complete' and thus stress-resistant as a human being. And yes, sometimes you have to resist, but again, don't let it rule your life too much. That is also too stressful.
I would like to end with a quote to explain why sometimes I really don't and can't keep my mouth shut when I feel injustice:
"People fear losing everything, so they remain silent. And in the end, they lose everything because of that silence". Fyodor Dostoevsky
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