Modern Life

[GMH]

Why is modern life so depressing?

Although technology has got better over the years it seems that everything else has got worse. Terrorist attacks, burglaries, robberies and murders have been greater than any time in the past and of course we don't know when the next one is just around the corner. Television programmes have got worse including the cost of the licence you have to buy to own a set. (So-called "security guards" aka stage managers separating guests apart on Trisha Goddard or Jeremy Kyle, or even Emmerdale six times a week, anyone?) People are more rude and foul-mouthed. I envy the elderly population who lived most of their lives in the 20th century and are probably not going to be around for much of the 21st century. Words like chav or ASBO did not exist even back in the 1990s. If I had a choice of living in the 1950s or 2000s, I would choose the 1950s, and I wasn't even born until the late 1970s!

Am I the only person who is thinking like this, or could all this get worse as the duration of the 21st century takes its course?

[waimarie]

Loss of respect for others - loss of faith - little or no self discipline - lack of ambition - selfishness - greed. Do I really need to go on ???

[vehelpfulguy]

While I agree that many things have got worse, a lot of things have got better.

In the last 100 years we had two world wars that killed and injured millions. People died in their millions of illnesses like TB.

A hundred years ago more than 50% of children died before they were five. Many people were poor, had outside toilets, died very young, worked 12 hour days.

Less than 50 years ago the centre of most cities were filled with smog from the chimneys of factories and houses.

In Victorian times Dickens wrote about children being sent up chimneys (Oliver Twist) and we had people on drugs (Opium Dens) and Gin Mothers out of their skull on Gin.

I think the main difference is that 50 years ago many people only knew what was going on in their street, and not much more.

News travelled slowly, for example it took 6 weeks for news to arrive in England that Everest had been climbed in 1953.

Now we have news everywhere, from the TV, radio, internet and newspapers.

You can have a train crash in China that kills 50 people (which is of almost no intertest to most English people) and within minutes it is on the internet or the TV and radio news.

The problem is that TV and Radio news people equate news with BAD NEWS.

Last year my son went on a scouting event in the Cotswolds. Thousands of young scouters spent all weekend walking the hills and doing activities. Was it on the news - No.

If a bad accident had happened and some scouts had been injured it would have been news headlines - Bad news.

There is no more bad events happening now than there were 50 years ago, it is just that now we hear about them all, 50 years ago we did not.

[Loosehead]

There are things that are better and things that are worse. I think though we tend to perceive things are a lot worse than they are because of the modern media, good news ain't news, so they report the bad things more. I mean is anyone saying they didn't have yobbery and burglary in the 50's? They may not have the the labels for it but they had it. Pretty much everyone is frightened to death of paedophiles these days and wrap their kids in cotton wool, drive them to school each day etc etc, I walked every day from the age of 5. Are we saying there where no paedophiles in the 50's/60's? I just think we are more aware of things. There is also this perception of the "good old days", to quote Henry from drop the dead donkey, "there's never been a 'golden age', I bet the dinosaurs where going around saying 'you never had any egg stealing in the good old Jurassic Period"!

[Bohne]

I don't think everything has gotten worse, rather it's easier to broadcast all the bad news today.

[Health]

Isn't it good to know there are still lots of decent people around who have time for eachother and bother to reply to sites like this.

We all get down from time to time and it is very difficult hearing all the negative things that go on in the world and we are living in difficult times! Buddhism says there are Three Poisons in life that cause suffering and they are Greed, Anger and Ignorance but that everyone has Buddha nature - even a mass murderer and these qualities inherent in all our lives are wisdom, compassion and courage and its better to bring out these qualities in order to live happy and fulfilling lives that will create value for oneself and others. A tall order to grasp it would seem and almost too simple/ difficult for most people to take on board but then just look at the nonsense we are fed and all the religions that believe in an eye for an eye etc. or that they are the chosen people regardless of their actions.

There is the strict law of Cause and Effect.

And if you want to feel good today, make a good cause yourself -either in thought, word or deed and it will alleviate your sadness by having a good effect.

Feel gratitude that it isn't you who is starving to death or suffering the effects of war and the many, many awful things that could actually affect your life.

[isca]

modern life may be a bit rubbish but its better than dying of small pox or the plague....

[marshman]

Late 50's/early 60's was the time when people,young and old had time for each other,money was worth something but more than this,it was not so "mechonised"as it is today,kids could go out to play without very much fear,teenages WALKED nearly everywhere,beer was a social habit,not just to get plastered on(although it did happen sometimes),enjoyed by young and old IN THE SAME PUB,all had respect for the police(except the criminals),Neighbours looked out for oneanother,the list goes on.Now it is all me,me and more me.

[Thunderchild]

well said mash man

today people bury themselves in technology and forget the simple plasures of life. and that comes from me a tech enthusiast but I know what the best things in life are.

[Tillyella]

The conditions we are living through now are fulfilling Bible prophecy. In the book of 2 Timothy Chapter 3 verses 1-5 the apostle Paul lists pretty much all of the events that are happening now. What is comforting is that he reports that such will be the case in the Last Days so we know from this that God has everything in hand and these terrible conditions will soon be a thing of the past.

[isca]

So do we just sit around waiting for the four horseman then or what?

[Tillyella]

From the scriptures in the book of Revelation the evidence is that these horseman are riding at this present time.

[pugwashjw]

The answer is in the Bible at 2 Timothy 3; 1-5 "3 But know this, that in the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here. 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-assuming, haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, disloyal, 3 having no natural affection, not open to any agreement, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness, 4 betrayers, headstrong, puffed up [with pride], lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power; and from these turn away.

These are the conditions we live with today.