Friday, January 5, 2018

Hey Chicken Littles - The Sky Is Not Falling!

For the past two years I’ve been suffering the Chicken Littles telling us how the world is going to end and everything is going to doom us.  Well, it’s been more than two years, but acutely for two years.  All over social media, even in general conversation there’s this thread of irrational fear of the End of the World ™.

And yet, the world isn’t ending.  In fact, by every rational measure things continue to get better, despite whatever horrible thing was supposedly happening or going to happen.  The sky doesn’t fall, the sun comes up and life goes on, usually a little better than the day before. Maybe we’re too tired and stressed to really appreciate it, but the truth is there nonetheless.

All this worry and panic and hysteria just end up being self-torture (and torture of others who have to endure the emotional outbursts) and unnecessary stress and fatigue.  But life goes on quite well nonetheless.

Oh, you say, but there are Real Problems.  Sure.  The world has always had problems.  The fact that we have the luxury to examine some of these problems and blow them far out of proportion in our own lives speaks to how few “Real Problems” most of us have. 

There have always been problems.  Some of them big.  None of them probably directly involving you.  Because while the world has problems, they’re fewer and smaller in magnitude than ever before in human history.  The world is wealthier than ever before in its history, and that wealth is spread more broadly than ever before – a higher percentage of humanity is in the middle class or higher than at any time in human history.  A higher percentage of people are free from war, disease or extreme poverty than at any other time in the history of man.

In fact, for all the hysteria and focus on “problems,” the world is on the cusp of eliminating extreme poverty in this generation.  For most of human history, extreme poverty was just the norm except for a very few.  The whole world was poor.  Pretty much everyone suffered serious diseases – most people didn’t make it to thirty.  Dying in childbirth was a very real and common “problem” for women, even wealthy women.  Wars were common, prevalent and far more destructive in terms of casualties (both soldiers and civilians) than now.

Yes, the world has the capability to effectively wipe out civilization with immensely powerful weapons, but since those weapons were invented and used (only twice in combat), the magnitude and severity of wars has steadily declined and the world’s wealth has increased exponentially.

And this wealth manifests not just in bank accounts, but in what is available and what humans are capable of doing.  The massive increase in wealth has allowed record percentages of students to graduate from universities, a luxury that wasn’t available when poverty was the norm.  This wealth has allowed every country to massively extend the length and quality of human life.  Electricity and indoor plumbing are the norm, even for “poor people.”  Access to music, books, cinema, television, Internet, email, text, news, and other information and entertainment that used to only be available to a small number of wealthy is near universal. 

Wealth isn’t just money, it’s the sum product of society.  Higher wealth means more expression in all its forms.  Look at the abundance of entertainment, much available completely for free on YouTube or through streaming.  The world music scene, movies, television, videos, all the multitude of expressions (who the hell heard of things like Tantra or meditation even 40 years ago?).  Universities, online learning, libraries, so much information available from so many sources, much free or very affordable.  Think about that – you can teach yourself a new trade, network with other students, and get yourself work with that new trade, all for very little money – at home, in your free time.  In Asia.  This was humanly impossible just a generation ago.  You can teach yourself a new language, talk to people in the other country, then go visit (or move to) that country, on less than a middle-class income.  Even in the 1980s, that was entirely out of reach for the average person.

People freak out about the environment, but the fact that we can spend time and energy tending to the environment shows just how far the world has come economically.  Environmental awareness is a byproduct of wealth – poor people don’t have the time, energy or resources to pay attention to these things. 

Wealth isn’t making the planet less livable – it’s what’s allowing the planet to be sustainable and thrive.  There are six billion people on this planet.  Because the planet is wealthy enough to afford that size of humanity.  If the world were as poor as it was 100 years ago, there is no way the planet could sustain even 1/5 that population.  And it wouldn’t – 100 years ago most babies died in the first year and most people didn’t make it to 40.  Plagues, famine and wars regularly killed off people when the population would get too high.  It is the unprecedented wealth that has allowed humanity to grow, sustain and thrive, and for the planet to continue to live and grow.  (And we are even able to clean the place up – the world environment is actually significantly more clean than it was a generation ago.)

But people don’t take a step back to look at the bigger picture.  Instead we tend to focus too much on small imperfections and blow them out of proportion.  We convince ourselves that a small problem is a big, insurmountable problem and panic.  Then when the sun keeps coming up, we quietly move on to something else, never learning the bigger lesson.

And I’ll admit I’m as guilty as anyone.  I’ve spent my life losing sleep and panicking over things that mattered little in the short-term, and mattered none at all in the long-term.  I woke up from this illusion of panic only a short while ago in relation to my life.  I used to wet the bed just like all the Chicken Littles.  And it brought me nothing but unnecessary sleep deprivation, personal anguish, relationship strife and general unhappiness for no good reason.

It’s because I went through all this and learned the lesson that I can say that the world is really a happy place, but we humans are a terribly unhappy species.  And the paradox is the wealthier the world becomes, the more happiness there is, and the more unhappy we humans become.  It’s like we long to be poor and miserable and seek to return to the wretched lives of our ancient forefathers, no matter how stupid, irrational and self-destructive that is.

Happiness is all around.  Being happy is simple, but because of our human nature it is not easy.  Humans are not good at stepping back and embracing the joy of interconnected abundance.  Instead we actively seek out disconnection and disparity.  We try to be unhappy.

Buddhist teaching speaks to the human nature that seeks out unhappiness.  I’m not here to push a religious philosophy, only to say the sooner one learns to accept the self-defeating, happiness-defeating nature of humans, the sooner one can learn to un-learn human nature and embrace happiness.

Because once one is free from the self-destructive patterns of human nature, happiness is easy.  Whatever your current position in the world, abundance is prevalent and happiness is everywhere.  We are blessed to be humans on this planet in this time.  Humanity is blessed.  And whatever your circumstances, you are blessed.  We all are.

I am a voice for happiness.  I am walking that path and I want to show the world the way. 

The path of happiness is peace, stillness, grounding, gratitude, abundance, interconnectedness and a conscious un-learning of our toxic human nature that leads us to unhappiness and death.

The world is not going to end.  In fact, it is getting better every day.  Humanity is getting better. You are, too.  Embrace it.  Learn to love this world and this life, to love humanity and embrace your connection to the abundance of humanity and the universe.


Humanity is going to be growing and thriving for a long, long time. Your time, however, is considerably more limited.  It’s time to be happy now.  Join me.

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