Are they braver or did we lack information?

I recently saw a video of Hugh Jackman saying that he comes from an era where speaking up and speaking the truth was just something “we didn’t talk about”.

There is a 20 years difference between me and him and a whole lot of cultural and social differences too, yet how the hell is this still valid and how come we still do that “we don’t talk about that stuff” stuff?

This is related to the Olympics, and how some of the players decided to prioritise mental health rather than the competition.

It’s not how I wanted it to go, but I think we’ve opened bigger doors and bigger conversation

Simone Biles

Mental health is one of those topics that is very common yet very personal, social media is full of DOs and DON’Ts yet the real struggle isn’t in reading and liking posts, but in making a decision about your life, a life that may seem perfect, luxurious, unattainable for most… but which doesn’t fulfill you and doesn’t make you feel you own it… instead it feels like it owns you.

It’s not surprising that more and more athletes are making a decision to value themselves and their wellbeing because we do live in unprecedented times (I’ve heard this word so often in the past couple of years, that it changed it meaning to a sarcastic one). We spent more time indoors and online in the past couple years than we ever did in the past years.

And with so much of information literally at our fingertips, isn’t it easier to be more informed, understand that we are not the only ones struggling and that we are not alone?

To Hugh Jackman’s point… yes. The times were tough. People, not only didn’t have so much access to information (and we overall were interested more in how the world works than how we – individually – work) but they were also surrounded by stoics who would rather keep the walls up than show a slight of vulnerability. Vulnerability was seen as being weak.

The question is, what do we do to change this? These brave girls opened the bigger doors and bigger conversations, but are we ready yet to handle them ?

Just because you don’t want to talk about it, it doesn’t mean it’s doesn’t exist. Just because you don’t see it as a problem, it doesn’t mean it’s not a problem.