Break Point: SAS: Who Dares Wins Host's Incredible True Story

by Ollie Ollerton

A few generations ago, far more men did manual labour, whether they were working down a pit, on a farm or in a steel plant. Those men led tough, tough lives. They were tested, both physically and mentally, every day. They plodded through life – got up at the crack of dawn, walked to work, worked like a dog for nine hours, walked home again, had dinner, fell into bed, and repeated that routine every day until they retired. They didn’t have time to think about their mental state. They were too busy struggling to put food on the table and heat their homes, and they didn’t know anything different. But far fewer people do such grinding work nowadays. Instead, people are fed into the system like coins into a machine, and they sit in offices, expending no energy and staring out of windows feeling frustrated and depressed with their lives. So many people don’t focus on the things they want in life. They don’t have a plan, because they don’t have any goals. And if you don’t have any goals or a plan, you lack any drive, which can lead to mental health issues. I don’t understand why people are so surprised that mental illness has become so prevalent in Western society. If you have no meaningful purpose, year after year, you start to close down. It’s almost like your brain saying, ‘If you’re not going to use me, I might as well pull down the shutters.’ Some people go to the gym and train all day long, but never even think about training their brains. That’s a metaphor for the flimsine...

Mental health