The US can’t remain a global superpower if one-fifth of Americans lost their inner superpower: mental stability
I am delighted my new book The Frugal Economy is shortlisted for the inaugural Thinkers50 Regenerative Business Award sponsored by Deloitte.
In this book, I show how to expand the concept and implementation of regeneration beyond the ecological aspect and include people and places.
I refer to it as triple regeneration — a holistic approach to boosting the health and vitality of people, places and the planet synergistically.
Read my Sustainable Brands article on triple article.
I would like to clarify my emphasis on the human aspect of regeneration.
In Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond identified 5 factors that historically caused human civilizations to collapse:
- climate change
- hostile neighbors
- collapse of essential trading partners
- environmental problems
- the society’s response to the foregoing 4 factors
All these factors are exogenous to human beings.
I fear, however, in today’s hyperconnected and hyperactive world that pressurizes our mind, our over-taxed nervous system risks collapsing well before the over-stretched ecological or social systems.
We already live in “the burnout society,” to cite the Korean-German philosopher Byung-Chul Han.
He believes that in our performance-driven culture, “we exploit ourselves passionately until we collapse. We realize ourselves, optimize ourselves unto death. The insidious logic of achievement permanently forces us to get ahead of ourselves.”
Hence, before we stop exploiting dwindling natural resources, we must end over-exploiting our own mind, body, and psyche to death.
Rather than bridge the wealth gap between rich and poor in our society, we must first bridge the gnawing inner gap between our gratification-seeking ego and our alienated soul.
I often assert that “I am a humanist first, then only an ecologist.”
In all my previous three books, I showed how we can unleash and harness our abundance inner resources — ingenuity, empathy, and wisdom — to build inclusive and sustainable economies.
My fourth book — The Frugal Economy — is no different.
In The Frugal Economy, I humanize the field of economics and show how nascent paradigms such as regenerative development can contribute to “mass flourishing” — a term coined by Edmund Phelps, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics.
The preamble of the US constitution begins with “We the People”
It should be “We the HEALTHY People”
A recent Gallup poll shows the % of US adults having depression exceeded 18% in both 2024 and 2025, up about 8% since the initial measurement in 2015.
Nearly 50 million Americans — especially the youth — suffer today from depression.
While the elite frets about America’s declining economy under Trump, I am deeply concerned about the decline of American’s mental well-being
America can’t remain a global superpower if one-fifth of its population has lost their biggest superpower : mental stability.
