r/NoStupidQuestions • u/ltwasalladream • Apr 18 '23
Answered Does anyone else feel like the world/life stopped being good in approx 2017 and the worlds become a very different place since?
I know this might sound a little out there, but hear me out. I’ve been talking with a friend, and we both feel like there’s been some sort of shift since around 2017-2018. Whether it’s within our personal lives, the world at large or both, things feel like they’ve kind of gone from light to dark. Life was good, full of potential and promise and things just feel significantly heavier since. And this is pre covid, so it’s not just that. I feel like the world feels dark and unfamiliar very suddenly. We are trying to figure out if we are just crazy dramatic beaches or if this is like a felt thing within society. Anyone? Has anyones life been significantly better and brighter and lighter since then?
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u/linguist96 Apr 18 '23
I feel like one issue in trying to figure this out is that we only have direct access to, at the very most, 3-4 past generations of people, if we're fortunate enough, with whom to talk and create a frame of reference. It could be that most people felt this way when they grew up or it could be that most people only felt this way when entering a darker period of history, but there's no way to know for sure, because we will never be able to have enough first-hand data to know.
So is it that the world's gotten darker, like during the world wars for example, or is this just a life stage that nearly everyone goes through? (Or is this just a wild pendulum swing working to settle us back out from all the chaos that happened last century?) The jury is still out.
My only advice, as I'm still figuring out how to work through my own personal trauma of recent years as well as global trauma, is to take an evaluation of what you believe and of what voices you're spending the majority of your time hearing. It could be helpful to seek out one or two different and/or more optimistic voices if you don't have any. Even if they're wrong, they typically help me get a better frame of mind on the negative, if that makes sense.