I am bang on with a prediction and I wish I wasn't

It has become an exercise of mine to predict trends and events for the year ahead. Of course there are some very well known people out there who do this, but why should they have all the opinions.

My forecast for 2012 was put on this blog:

http://johncburns.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/trends-and-forecasts-for-2012.html

Some of the events outlined there are happening now, some are still waiting in the wings.

One of the things I predicted was an increase in suicide rates because of the very poor state of the economy.

Sadly this is one area where I seem to have been accurate in my predictions.

One need only read stories like this one:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2219345/Why-did-banker-perfect-life-fatal-leap-Fourth-tragedy-City-restaurant.html
to see just what is happening.

These deaths are the by-product of the way we have chosen to life today. Perhaps chosen is the wrong word. We strive to be successful in the environment which we find prepared for us by others.

A workplace filled with similarly driven people, where success and money equal status and the loss of face implied by failure is too awful to contemplate; even death is better than that.

Actually though the numbers are more complicated than they appear. In truth it is suicides for men over the age of 45 that are rising as you can see in the chart below.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_254113.pdf

So it seems that something more complex is happening. Is it more to do with the loss of status, the change in society from a basically patriarchal system to something more based on skill than gender?

Whatever it is and whatever part drugs (including prescription medications play in it); it is surely worthy of more consideration. Of course this chart only runs up until 2010, the next two years may change the story.

From my own perspective  I feel that so much of this is about the loss of core values and meaning in a person's life. If you sacrifice all to your career to provide for your family, but the family relationships fall apart because of the single minded focus, what have you really gained?