The "One in Fourcast" Movement

A Future History You're Invited to Make True

It started on September 26, 2023. After reading an article from The Cigna Group, The Loneliness Epidemic Persists: A Post-Pandemic Look at the State of Loneliness Among U.S. Adults , I saw this quote / stat from the article:

"Americans with mental health issues are more than twice as likely to be lonely than those with strong mental health.?One in four adults are classified as having fair or poor mental health, and among them, 85% are lonely compared to 42% of adults with excellent or very good mental health."

Then I reviewed the press release from May, 2023 a friend had sent, New Surgeon General Advisory Raises Alarm about the Devastating Impact of the Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation in the United States , where the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy noted:

“Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation has been an underappreciated public health crisis that has harmed individual and societal health. Our relationships are a source of healing and well-being hiding in plain sight – one that can help us live healthier, more fulfilled, and more productive lives. Given the significant health consequences of loneliness and isolation, we must prioritize building social connection the same way we have prioritized other critical public health issues such as tobacco, obesity, and substance use disorders. Together, we can build a country that’s healthier, more resilient, less lonely, and more connected.”

He created a PDF as a resource called, Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation that is a MUST READ for all people, since either:

1. If you're a person, you may be one of the four people struggling with mental health issues.
2. If you're a person, you may be struggling with loneliness and isolation. You have, will or are struggling and may not be equipped to deal with it.
3. You know someone struggling with loneliness and isolation in your most immediate and direct network (nuclear family, extended family, friends at work, etc).

I encouraged people reading my LinkedIn post to please go to page forty five of this report to learn about "The Six Pillars to Advance Social Connection" that include:

• Strengthen Social Infrastructure in Local Communities
• Enact Pro-Connection Public Policies
• Mobilize the Health Sector
• Reform Digital Environments
• Deepen our Knowledge
• Cultivate a Culture of Connection

(I didn't mind that a number of people didn't continue reading my article at this point. I wrote it so they and we can take action to address loneliness and isolation and heal the planet).

Then I read a fantastic post from the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York City, Adult Loneliness - An Epidemic in Modern America , who provided multiple resources to deal with loneliness based on a play they're producing called, Primary Trust . The article talked about the Making Caring Common project out of Harvard which has a focus on "Raising kids who care about others and the common good." But it was this quote from University of Chicago professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, Stephanie Cacioppo that stood out most to me:

"[T]he best thing you can do for someone who is lonely is not to give them help but ask them for help. So you give them a sense of worth and a chance to be altruistic. Even if we’re getting the best care, we still feel lonely if we can’t give something back."

I found this to be extremely encouraging yet also challenging. Modern Americans, particularly older male types like myself, have been trained that asking for help can be seen as weak. Or you make yourself vulnerable by asking for help. Or you may be a strain on other people's time and resources.

But then I had this "One in Fourcast" idea and thought it would make for a good movement. The basic idea is to link people's need for connection to the climate. Where someone is alone, or feels lonely, connect them to volunteer opportunities or a church or other place of worship or - and here's the potential deep challenge for Americans / Westerners in the age of the algorithm:

Bring people together struggling with isolation to others in the workplace. Redefine "innovation" in an era where our planet and (at least one in four) people are struggling to make an impact that starts from the hearts yearning for connection to make connections at work as that may be the only place where many people can connect to others.

People being freaked out or worried about climate issues is nothing new. Many great books have been written about climate grief that are must reads. (One of my favorites is, A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet by Sarah Jaquette Ray . Her book has been positively reviewed by many, many sources including Popular Science who wrote an article on how to create support groups around climate anxiety which was part of my inspiration for this article).

Having read a number of books along these lines, it was also around this time I read the excellent article from Dr. James C. Arnott from the Aspen Global Change Institute, Loneliness, isolation, and climate solutions: Is there a connection? Here's an excerpt from the article:

Late last year, two health researchers from the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, André Hajek and Hans-Helmut K?nig, reported an association between climate anxiety and perceived social isolation . They surveyed over 3,000 people living in Germany, using questions designed to test levels of loneliness, isolation, and climate anxiety. Respondents also provided demographic and lifestyle details, such as age, gender, location, and alcohol/smoking habits. When these factors are included, the survey data analysis found an association between climate anxiety and both loneliness and social isolation. Higher levels of loneliness and isolation were significantly associated with higher levels of climate anxiety for the overall population and for those between the ages of 18–64.

In my LinkedIn article, written on September 26, 2023, I got to the end of the article and wondered how best to start a movement and recognized the following:

• "Fourcast" is a pun. I wanted to connect the idea of a "forecast" and weather with the concept of a future state we could create. A weather "forecast" talks about predicting what weather may come. The facts about mental health and loneliness are here now, so my point with this title is to play with language to communicate an idea.
• ChatGPT and other technology gets to play with language and even use voice prompts to do so. LLMs, while providing a new way of searching and aggregating language in fascinating ways, also contain (according to a hero of mine who I hope to someday meet, Dr. Timnit Gebru) a great deal of bad science . They also threaten water, as the now well-known paper, Making AI Less Thirsty notes. So forgive me for the pun but my goal is to help us all serve and love the planet as part of our work to see and care for each other.
• The article was long enough. To try and get things started. To help people recognize the loneliness in their lives and those they care about.

The risk of conflation. I have friends who tell me I conflate things. Different areas that heretofore haven't been connected. I appreciate their thoughts, but now I think unless someone says I or others are conflating areas that are part of current systems we probably aren't innovating. Where anyone suffering from loneliness can help themselves, someone else, or the planet, in love and understanding - let conflation reign.

Of course, my article wasn't what started the Movement. It was those who read it, on September 26, 2023 who made the commitment to tell one person in their life today how they sometimes feel lonely and could use their (the other person's) help. They had one tough conversation, that wasn't as tough once they uttered words of connection reaching out from the universe in love and faith to "Forcast" for each other.

My friends - we all want to have impact on the planet and those we love.

So today, have that one conversation to deal with the loneliness and isolation epidemic. Yes, we must be considerate that mental health and loneliness issues are not as simple as having one conversation and long-term efforts must be made for long-term effects.

I couldn't agree more.

But we have to start somewhere.

So, I'll begin.

While I have a number of people in my life who I know love and care for me, I have also been struggling with loneliness and isolation in various ways over the past number of years. I get self-absorbed and focus on myself. And it's easy for me to turn inward after years of being in jobs where introspection is part of my toolkit.

I welcome your help. But not for me directly. Please have one conversation today, especially at work, to let someone else know if you sometimes struggle with loneliness or isolation. Or have a conversation about isolation in general. At work. If needed, go to your HR person and ask how to do this in ways that won't make someone else uncomfortable. But also recognize being uncomfortable in love (for yourself or others) is part of the first step towards being vulnerable.

Be a part of the future history we can all make true. Imagine what we can do when we marshal our former-isolation energy to help the planet! That's a dream worth a forecast, however you spell it.

And with those conversations - we all began to change the world together. History began to change. One vulnerable conversation at at time.