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It is a bit naive to think that life was harder (it is generally true of course) 100 years ago, and thus the most common emotional and physical conditions were fatigue, despair, and darkness. The pressures of life 50-70-100 years ago were very different from what we experience in our time, just as the emotional and physical pressure and fatigue that come from doing manual labor (e.g., moving furniture) is different from the stress of a well-paid white-collar job. Naively, one might assume that manual, back-breaking work is significantly more stressful than a professional job. From a physical, chronic body strain perspective, this is true. Also, the white-collar professional, say a worker in tech, can make 2-3 times to 10 times (and more) than a non-specialized blue-collar worker. As we know, more money in hand never made a life worse. But I've been around blue-collar and professional environments my whole life, and anecdotally, white-collar workers are much more stressed than blue-collar workers, more frequently in emotional distress, and almost always in-between distressing work issues. And envy and constant comparisons that seemed to be endemic in, say, the tech world, do more damage than one imagines. There may be a former colleague who now has the title of vice president, another who invested in crypto and earned a fortune, yet another who took home a few million dollars when the start-up company he worked for and on which nobody would have bet by hook or by crook was acquired, have ruined more than one existence. I, a tech professional who is well paid and has no health problems, should be much happier on paper--and I might say more relaxed, satisfied, enthusiastic--than a worker moving cartons back and forth with a forklift and than I was when I had much less money, a less comfortable life, less leisure time and fewer professional and personal opportunities, and an economically uncertain future ahead. Why am I not then? Is it because of "more money, more opportunities, more problems"? Is it because years ago I had the enthusiasm and arrogance of youth and now the more careful and cynical pace of those who know they have more to lose? Is it because I had that lightheartedness that perhaps those in less intellectually demanding jobs have had fewer opportunities to lose over time? I lived all of my youth with my grandparents: born before World War II, modest families to be generous, all their lives working in the fields, driving trucks, assembling furniture. However, I saw very few emotional problems (overt, at least), perhaps because they were born and raised in an environment that didn't let them dream much and thus didn't favor disappointment later on. A wife or husband who "just needs to be a good person and work a steady job", a day at the beach that was an event they talked about for months if not years. There was little envy because in the end relatives and friends all lived the same life and the serious problems were those coming from poor health. Work ended at 5 or 6 in the afternoon, and you would arrive home tired, but you would think about work the next day. Dinner and lunch were homemade; during the weekend you did the housework and visited relatives or friends, and maybe you had ice cream here and there. Would I trade my life for theirs? I wouldn't; I like to have opportunities and I have a lot more ambition than my grandparents. But, would they have traded theirs for mine?
I asked my grandfather some time ago, "Would you like to take a plane once in your life ?'' He replied no. Maybe that's part of the secret. |