I DESPAIR ABOUT OUR WORLD OF WAR

DEAR Bel,

I LOVE your column and respect and admire the wisdom you share. I honestly think that a column like yours can change lives.

I’m wondering if you could share your opinion of the times in which we live. I think this would be helpful to many people.

You see, recently I wrote an email to my family in Canada and was shocked (when I read it back) at all the negativity in the content.

I went on and on about energy costs, strikes, economic woes, climate change, the war in Ukraine . . . you get the idea. Life can feel so depressing.

That’s why I can’t help wondering how you are coping with all the challenges of today’s living. Does it get you down?

DIANA

YOUR kind comments are much appreciated at a time when I need them, not because of the world situation, but owing to a private worry which no wisdom can solve. Isn’t that how life is?

So that even in a time of national crisis a woman will feel anguish because someone she loves is unhappy?

Like everyone else, I have to accept that there are things — both national and personal — that I have no power to change.

In this column I regularly try to share positivity, but there’s always somebody reading who’ll take umbrage at a throwaway remark and write telling me how ‘angry’ and ‘disgusted’ they are.

Isn’t that how life is, too?

Contemplating history and death puts so many things in perspective.

That is why I have a smiling-skeleton ornament sitting underneath my computer.

But today I feel a new surge of hope, not because the problems of the world are in any way diminished, but on account of love and good humour and sorrow that can unite us all.

When you reach my age you have seen so many leaders (some good, some appalling) and so many crises, you just take them on the chin.

‘This too will pass’ is as useful when thinking of politics as it is when reflecting on your private woes.

As a dyed-in-the-wool realist, I’ve moved politically from the idealistic Left to the pragmatic Right-ofcentre and from general optimism (believing in the best of human nature) to the weary scepticism I often feel today. I detest all extremes, but nothing in politics ‘gets me down’ because people are pretty predictable and I don’t expect anything better.

But when there is a shocking natural disaster, as well as sadness I feel renewed hope because people are so compassionate, so generous — for example, when this paper set up its fund to help Ukraine.

However, that awareness of goodness has to be balanced by a darker awareness of greed, exploitation or malice.

This column has accustomed me to human weakness. Perfection is impossible; all we can do is our best.

I cope with challenges by saying that since my personal life has always been difficult, since childhood, the only solution is to be very, very resilient.

And after that? Just become even stronger. That’s how you survive.