Many people pine for the “good old days”, but those days seem to be in a different decade depending on who is saying it. Kevin Kelly explains why in his book “Excellent Advice for Living“. He says:
When someone tells you about the peak year of human history the period of time when things were good before things went downhill it will always be the year when they were 10 years old— which is the peak of any human’s existence. Factor that into what they say.
I tend to agree with what he’s saying for two reasons:
First, it matches my experience. I was born in 1976, so what was 1986 like? The Nintendo Entertainment System had just come out, I was loving “Voltron”, and I was at the peak of my athletic career (my baseball skills never went much beyond 10-year-old abilities). It was a great year.
Second, I see this on social media. I mentioned the “different decade” at the top, and this seems to line up. People born in the 1950’s seem to miss the 1960’s, and you can follow it up the timeline.
Maybe in some ways those “good old days” really were better, but more likely it was just when our world was great because of our stage in life. There’s nothing wrong with that, but keeping that in mind when comparing eras will help you make a better judgement on what today’s world is really like.
