Ron Shawgo, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, reports that Indiana ranks low on the latest well-being index. My working theory is that Hoosiers are inherently mistrustful of joy. If some part of life brings happiness, it’s suspect.
Once again, Indiana ranks near the bottom in the annual Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, a state-by-state survey of ourselves and surroundings. If there’s any good news it’s that Indiana rose two notches to 46th place.
. . .
Using measures of purpose, social interaction, financial security, community pride and health, the index attempts to help communities and businesses make decisions on health care and job productivity. If you feel good about yourself, have pride in your community, have supportive relationships and believe your life has purpose, then you are likely a healthy, productive person. The measures intertwine.
Indiana consistently has been in the bottom 10 in the index. Its highest ranking was 38th in 2011.
The criteria (and Indiana’s rank) are:
PURPOSE (39): Liking what you do each day and being motivated to achieve your goals
SOCIAL (41): Having supportive relationships and love in your life
FINANCIAL (33): Managing your economic life to reduce stress and increase security.
COMMUNITY (44): Liking where you live, feeling safe and having pride in your community
PHYSICAL (46): Having good health and enough energy to get things done daily.
It doesn’t surprise me that, even though it isn’t great, Indiana performs best on the financial category. We allow ourselves to prioritize working for money. Observing the attitudes of Hoosiers over the years, I suspect many of our citizens view the other stuff as, on some level, frivolous. Certainly not something we support the government spending money on.
Hawaii, Alaska, Montana, Colorado, and Wyoming end up with the best scores while Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and West Virginia make up the bottom five.
Ironically, Indiana per capita income has been steadily dropping. I wonder how bad things have to get before people realize that they need to make some changes in the way the state is run.
The people will first have to believe that life can and ought to be better.
Excellent insight. People need to have some vision about what life could be, rather than focusing on perceived deterioration. “Where there is no vision the people perish….” (Prov. 29:18, KJV)
Ain’t [g]od been good to Indiana.
For me, the most telling part of the article you linked to:
“Dr. Deborah McMahan, commissioner of the Fort Wayne-Allen County Department of Health, said she likes that the index includes purpose, which is critical to health.
“Until people are mentally and spiritually centered and feel like they’re living an intentional, purposeful life nothing else I say really matters,” she said. “Because it’s hard work to live a healthy life, and unless you’re living that healthy life for some reason, it’s too much work.”
Gillespie believes if the state can focus on the social, financial and community elements, then purpose will go up. “And then we’re going to be looking at our physical well-being in a much different way, and that is we’re doing it because we feel we have a future,” he said.”
When you think of it, isn’t lack of purpose the reason people become involved in all sorts of self-destructive behaviors, and it ultimately affects their families and communities? The endemic drug issues in the southern counties, for example. Have you driven through some of those small towns, do they look like there is much purpose for living there? Probably lots of things contribute to lack of purpose, and I know individual characteristics are the main drivers, but wouldn’t wise communities see that providing opportunities of all varieties, and ways to access them, as ultimately beneficial efforts? And I don’t mean just centered on churches, either. I don’t think the doctor meant that when she used the word “spiritually”.
Insightful, Mary. We have a farm in So. Indiana, and subscribe to the local paper, which regularly reports various criminal activities. I’m sure there is a selective factor at work, among other things, but there are so many folks messing around sexually with minors, doing drugs and activities that suggest these people lack purpose and meaning. Unemployment and underemployment seems rife.. The repressed community that seems to lack self-awareness believes that more laws, restrictions and tough prosecutors will bring this to an end, when there are a lot of bored people with nothing to do but get into trouble..
It’s not just southern Indiana. I live in eastern Indiana and things are pretty much the same. Mental health and addictions are abundant, yet the appropriate care is either not available or not used. While I tend to agree with Doug 90+ percent of the time, I disagree about Hoosiers mistrusting joy or not valuing it. I think much of our well-being is tied to economics. If you live in the one of the prosperous areas of the state or even the prosperous area of a county-seat town, you can be blind to what’s going on around you. Oh, you may know that there’s a heroin problem (or a meth problem, a methadone problem, etc.), but it doesn’t directly affect you. The same goes for out-of-wedlock births, urban decay, mental illness, obesity, tobacco use, etc. If it’s not happening to you or the people you know, it’s not that much of a problem.
In Richmond, the southeast side of town is nice, but much of the rest of the city is in varying degrees of decay. Yet many still act as if poverty and struggling are just some small percentage of people in the town. I know because I sort of straddle both worlds. My mother and I belong to an upper middle class to wealthy church congregation. The people are nice and do a lot to give to various charitable organizations. They are also kinda clueless. I would gather the same could be said of Connersville, New Castle, Muncie, Anderson, etc.
Well, when politicians are in serious competition to match or better Mississippi, they just can’t go halfway. That takes some real effort to fool the population into voting for people who will seriously make the third world in Indiana a reality. Then make sure it’s everywhere, not just in southern Indiana.
Stuart and Pila, very good observations. I can chime in on northeastern Indiana sharing the same issues.
I was able to watch the economic and social devolution of several Indiana small towns in Real Time. In the late seventies and through much of the 1980s, I drove down Indiana 13 on my way to Bloomington and then Indianapolis.
The first things to go in these small towns were the clothing stores. Then the hardware stores and small pharmacies. Then the small town grocery stores. The gas stations that sold gas and repaired cars gave way to convenience stores. The downtowns emptied out. Antique stores and second-hand shops would come and go, but they slowly dwindled.
I still drive Indiana 13 when I go to Indianapolis. A couple of these towns even had their lone tavern close down. That is a cruel ironic twist for towns where about all there is to do is drink and do meth.
It was saddening to watch these towns wither, but the trend was inevitable.
When driving through these towns I am reminded of the statement of E A Ross. In 1915 sociologist E.A. Ross declared that small Midwestern towns reminded him of “fished out ponds populated chiefly by bullheads and suckers.”
Carlito, my observation has been that the first thing to go from a small town was the high school, through school consolidation. You took the center piece out of the town. The spot where everyone gathered on Friday night whether you had children in the game,band,or cheer team. It WAS just the thing to do. Consolidating and moving the schools out of several small towns to a new school somewhere in a former cornfield ended that sense of community and purpose.
John, you are absolutely right. I almost said this, but these things happened long before I could drive. There is one town on Ind. 13 north of Wabash called Urbana. (The root is kind of ironic, urban.) The cornerstone of the old Urbana high school, or something like it, sits at the entrance of a town park. It is a big “U” carved into a stone. If makes your point perfectly. I should stop and take a picture of it, it is that stark and stunning.
And then there is the town of Swayzee. There is a big billboard in town that says, Swayzee, the world record holder for overtimes in a high school basketball with eight of them. That is a long time to cling to a memory.
My dad played basketball in the “Hoosiers” era. He said that the movie was pretty accurate in conveying the importance of a town’s high school basketball team.