From time to time, my mind will wander off long enough for me to come to some dire conclusions. We all know that modern times have made our lives easier but honestly there is a reason that not too long ago, the average lifespan was only 40.
Let’s start with a problem I have had since I was little. I am able to perspire like a priest on parent teacher conference day. During the hot and humid summers of southern Illinois my body would move all of the water from my blood and deposit it into my clothes. Without air conditioning I would be nothing more than a large moist lump in the hot months.
I wear prescription glasses and sometimes I will take them off and try to go about my day with the vision I come by naturally. I can usually only last about a minute. To put my vision in perspective, I have to squint to make out the E on the chart. Let’s say I want back in time. Like wayyyy back in time to the era of hunting your own food. How the hell would I be able to throw a crude spear into an animal if I can’t see it? But, thanks to a one hour trip to the eye doctor every few years, I have the vision of a fighter pilot.
About a month and a half ago I awoke to pain in my lower back. I get that from time to time and that night I was stretching and moving around, trying to get the pain to go away. Well, the next morning I was greeted with pain in my butt. It was literally a pain in my butt the went down my whole leg. After taking it easy and downing pain killers like candy I finally went to the doctor. Turns out I have a bulging disc in my back that is poking into my sciatic nerve, and yes it is as painful as it sounds.
In the mornings, I can barely stand. At night, if I lay down and don’t get back up correctly, I have to crawl back to bed. I am lucky enough to run an IT company with my brother. I have missed a lot of work due to this and many times, I work from home in the mornings. If I worked for someone and did manual labor I would be out of work. I can sit for hours but can’t stand more than a couple minutes.
The point I am trying to make here is that I think that our quality of life has crossed thresh hold. It must have been around the 1950s. America was post war, economically stable, and ready to reap the benefits of new technology and mainstream conveniences. Most of us are living better now than the richest elite of a mere 100 years ago. We have solved many of life’s pain points and things are only getting better. We still have to deal with sickness and death, stress and pressure, but we are dealing with it all in the most ideal of conditions. Our complaints skew toward the trivial. Let’s just take a step back once in a while and realize what we all have been born into. Thousands of generations have built us up into what we are today.