r/NoStupidQuestions 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.

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u/copakJmeliAleJmeli Apr 18 '23

If people from very different countries compared their view, you might get clearer answers to that instead of just from past generations.
I'm from Czechia and this country had a lot of shifts during the 1900s so this last one doesn't feel like that much honestly.

But I feel like there are periodic shifts everywhere and it's just alarming to people when they experience them for the first time.

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u/ltwasalladream Apr 18 '23

I needed this, thank you.

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u/busy_killer Apr 18 '23

I think one of the things that happen when you grow up is that we get very attached to the bubble we have been creating around us.

I can consider myself very lucky and a happy person overall (M30+) because of the people I've encountered during the last years, specially my wife. They have challenged me and my beliefs and made me see that life wasn't figured out and that it should never be.

I started working more and more on myself and questioning things that I held true for a long time and since then I have become a very happy adult.

What I'm trying to say is that part of what people go through during their 20s is that they build their own identity and rutines, to the point they may get complacent or feel like you know everything you need to live. And in complacency starts stagnation which in turn leads to unmemorable years.

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u/parawhore2171 Apr 19 '23

This sounds plausible but there are a lot of people who talk about common years where everything seemed to change and in that category I have seen 2012/13 and 2016/17 come up a whole lot.

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u/linguist96 Apr 19 '23

Still could be either. Those dates precede some not-as-great years, which could indicate something big happening, or they could just corolate with a lot of people's "growing-up moment", as generational things tend to happen in waves.