Are these times the toughest?

I think we often find ourselves looking out at the world and seeing only strife and trouble … tough times no doubt, right? But are these really the toughest of times? Probably depends on one’s life position – race, class, location, etc. There isn’t one answer to apply generally, but I believe there is one question we all should ask – daily!

I keep reading historical fiction books around the white people’s invasion of North America, and am just amazed at the complexity and difficulties of everyday life by everybody except the very wealthy – regardless of race or color. The difficulties didn’t make them miserable … they rose to the occasion and made a life in the best way possible – one day at a time.

Maybe, the issue is how to define ‘life’s difficulty’ or ‘life’s happiness’ … the common way to look at it is through life expectancy and other ‘standard of living’ measures – what is the measure for ‘quality of life’? If life expectancy is a valid measure, then we’re much better off now than since measures were possible.

Source: https://www.verywellhealth.com/longevity-throughout-history-2224054

That’s not the full story, however. This author tried to put those findings into an academic paper

Human society has changed much over the last centuries and this process of ‘modernization’ has profoundly affected the lives of individuals; currently we live quite different lives from those forefathers lived only five generations ago. There is difference of opinion as to whether we live better now than before and consequently there is also disagreement as to whether we should continue modernizing or rather try to slow the process down. Quality-of-life in a society can be measured by how long and happy its inhabitants live. Using these indicators I assess whether societal modernization has made life better or worse. Firstly I examine findings of present day survey research. I start with a cross-sectional analysis of 143 nations in the years 2000–2008 and find that people live longer and happier in today’s most modern societies. Secondly I examine trends in modern nations over the last decade and find that happiness and longevity have increased in most cases. Thirdly I consider the long-term and review findings from historical anthropology, which show that we lived better in the early hunter-gatherer society than in the later agrarian society. Together these data suggest that societal evolution has worked out differently for the quality of human life, first negatively, in the change from a hunter-gatherer existence to agriculture, and next positively, in the more recent transformation from an agrarian to an industrial society. We live now longer and happier than ever before.

While we may live longer, we may have less violence in our day-to-day lives, but that does not translate to ‘better quality of life’. The stoic view would be that it depends on our reactions to the world, not the world itself. But why do we complain all the time about how bad things are when all we have to do is change our reaction / approach?

Not an easy answer, not a rhetorical question either … one we have to ask and answer daily imho. How do I live better today than yesterday? That’s the question!

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