Keeping Things In Perspective

For a small amount of perspective at this moment, imagine you were born in 1900. When you are 14, World War I starts, and ends on your 18th birthday with 22 million people killed. Later in that year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until you are 20. Fifty million people die from it in those two years. Yes, 50 million. When you’re 29, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, the global GDP drops 27%. That runs until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren’t even over the hill yet. When you’re 41, the United States is fully pulled into WWII. Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million people perish in war and the Holocaust kills six million. At 50, the Korean War starts and five million perish. At 55 the Vietnam War begins, and doesn’t end for 20 years. Four million people die in this conflict. Approaching your 62nd birthday you have the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on the planet, as we know it, could have well ended. Great leaders prevented that from happening. As you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900. How do you survive all of that? A kid in 1985 didn’t think their 85 year old grandparent understood how hard school was. Yet those grandparents (and now great grandparents) survived through everything listed above. Perspective is an amazing art. Let’s try to keep things in perspective. Let’s be smart, help each other out, and we will get through all of this.