Johann Hari is an award-winning political journalist, he has also written for big-name publications like the Huffington Post and The independent. He’s well known for his book Chasing the Scream: The Search for the Truth About Addiction, the main theme of the book is about addiction: The opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, but personal connections with other people. He also gave a unique TED Talk on addiction that went viral.

Despite this author’s thoughtful breakthroughs on certain topics, he is still held back by his journalistic sins of the past. In 2011 there have been several articles claiming that he plagiarised quotes from several pieces of literature. Johann Hari has later apologized for his misgivings and hasn’t had any more public accusations of the sort since.

He starts off his article by speaking on how we’ve got it all wrong when it comes to dealing with anxiety and depression. The general public treats anxiety and depression as a simple chemical imbalance, but there are also external/environmental factors that affect anxiety-related disorders. 

“So far we have scientific evidence for 9 different causes for depression and anxiety, two of them are indeed in our biology, your genes can make you more sensitive to these problems though they don’t write your destiny, and there are real brain changes that can happen when you become depressed that make it harder to get out.”

1.) “if you’re lonely, you’re more likely to become depressed”

2.) “If when you go to work you don’t have any control over your job, you just got to do what you’re told, you’re more likely to become depressed.”

3.) “If you very rarely get out into the natural world, you’re more likely to become depressed”

4.)  “Every human being needs a purpose” | 4:44

5.) If you’re depressed or anxious, you’re a human being with unmet needs“

6) “Don’t be yourself, be us, be we, be part of a group”

7) ¨If you feel life is about money and status and showing off you’re gonna feel like crap” | 14:15