"Just think how happy you would be if you lost everything you have right now, and then got it back again."
- Frances Rodman
Pete Du Pont, a writer for the WSJ Opinion Journal, has penned an op-ed discussing Gregg Easterbrook's new book, The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse. Du Pont recalls how from the 1960's through the 1980's, pessimists predicted the demise of the world and its resources, and were dead wrong. He cites Easterbrook's research as he outlines the progess we've made in this country:
"Almost everything about American...life is getting better for almost everyone. Public health is improving...Environmental trends are nearly all postive...Welfare rolls are shrinking...Crime has declined...Education levels keep rising..."
When I think of my own childhood and what we had, compared to what we have now, I'm awed. We had no tv, no air-conditioning, no central heat, and no dial phones. We grew, or caught much of our food. Mom made many of our clothes and washed them by hand with a scrub board and washtub. My grandparents had no running water, no indoor plumbing, and no electricity.
The transformation of our society in the last 50 years has been nothing short of phenomenal. We have so much. Yet, with all this prosperity, Easterbook says we're not any happier. Why is this?
"...our genetic pessimism--an internal bad-news bias--plus the championing of victimhood by...the media, along with the material abundance that pressures us to seek more...are the reasons that people don't feel better off."
My parents labored physically and their world was pretty small. Today, we work with our minds, and our world is global. Stress is prevalent. The cost of "progress" may be the peace of mind I think my parents had. Is it worth it?
3 comments:
I agree with what WSJ and you say, but it brought up another idea. Maybe the restless striving for more is at the heart of progress. I am always amazed at these primitive tribes from isolated areas. Why does one culture continually press for more, better, and bigger, while another culture does the same thing their tribe has done for 4,000 years?
to continue: We are still striving to improve our world. We'd like to go back to the 40's and 50's but we still want to keep what we have now. If we keep working at it, could we end up with progress and peace of mind at the same time? Is this our next giant step? There are a lot of solutions that are being tried...flex-time, work on the internet at home, multi-tasking. The how-to articles are endless. Maybe we can find a way to have both.
The problem we see in this life is that more materialism and so-called progress never satisfies the deep reaches of the human soul. We can be as creative and "progressive" as our God-given talents will allow us to be. But in the end, there is still something bigger and better than all of man's accomplishments...and that is the God that created us and only in Him will we find true rest and peace of mind. That eternal truth must be realized and experienced by each generation.
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