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We have to understand that education
perse is not the answer to survival. We need new kinds of human
beings who use the new ways of healing, self-responsibility
and understand the nature and workings of a human body and soul.
The Control Factor
The other facility for enabling people to lead secure and fulfilling
lives is the matter of control. Professor Michael Marmot did
the famous Whitehall study, in which he looked for the reasons
for illness in a relatively stable population of civil servants.
He found that there was a definite gradient of morbidity based
on the position of the individual civil servant within the hierarchy.
This gradient was associated with stress indicators such as
serum fibrinogen, serum cholesterol, hypertrophy of the heart,
obesity and diabetes. It was also related to factors such as
lifestyle, and support of family and friends. However, beyond
all of this was an extra factor, making up around 60% of the
morbidity, which could not be identified. The statistical information
was complete when the missing X factor was found to be the degree
of control the employees felt they had in their work situation.
In fact, the civil servants on level 2 hierarchy were twice
as likely to suffer from a life threatening disease than those
on level 1; level 1 being the top level. Marmot therefore has
defined a new factor in the incidence of stress in adults as
being control of destiny.
What this means is that if people have
a sense of mastery in their lives, and the commitment to their
job, without feeling imposed upon, enforced or restricted by
their superiors, they are much more likely to be successful
and healthy.
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