To feel like it's one crisis after another.

[Outofideas79]

So I was born in the 80s. Since I became an adult it just feels like its one disaster after another. War with Afghanistan, war with Iraq, the financial crisis, austerity (I've not actually worked properly in a time when we weren't in austerity), public sector pay freezes, Brexit, Covid, war with Russia (we're there in all but name), crisis in national health, crisis in education (my colleagues daughter has been told to stay at home for a couple of days this week due to staff shortages), the country in financial crisis generally, inflation, high interest rates, cost of living crisis, dodgy housing market, and now to top off all that off, rapidly and frankly frighteningly increasing tensions in the middle east which I think we are now embroiled in whether we like it (or can afford it) or not.

It seems one thing after another and with no end in site. A general election this year, but how much can any new government change, impending conflict of some kind looking to undo any progress made with reducing the rate of inflation. Its all rather exhausting. Or is that just me 🤣 to put it in some context I work in the public sector, so budget cuts are at the forefront of my mind ATM.

I'm an 80s born millennial so whilst I hear what you are saying I think every generation has had there own share of it. We didn't start the fire as the wise Billy Joel did sing

Which imagined golden age of not so long ago were you comparing it with?

That's how the world has always been.

Tbh I've just accepted it as the norm. I'm Gen X

You're just hyper aware of these things because the media is constantly scaremongering and we can't escape the news due to social media. How do you suppose people living in the 20s, 30s, 40s etc felt. They were much worse off.

@CranfordScones I'm not really sure I am comparing it to anything. I'm not sure i can 🤣 Maybe I'm asking if this is just the norm?

Exactly. Pick any decade you want from history and it will be exactly the same. We just have social media and instant news at our fingertips now so it feels more obvious.

Have you not heard of WW1 & WW2. Not being condescending here, but do you know anything about history at all?

Turn the news off and don’t read the newspaper

Try to avoid working in any govt funded role

@ClownFishFin well you really are aren't you. Jesus Christ. If you'd actually read the above statement, not to sound condescending at all, you'd see I'm not comparing it to anything at all, but asking if we are moving from one crisis to another. But you'd know that if you'd read it and not jumped to conclusions about whether I'm whinging about whether we have it worse off. Not to sound condescending at all of course.

I’m a baby boomer. The 70s were grim - three day week etc. Miners’ strike in the 80s, Falklands War on the TV every night, interest rates spiralling … Cold War tensions, Reagan and Thatcher, whole industries closing down.

Since then two recessions and all the stuff you’ve mentioned. And my boomer husband grew up in the 50s with nuclear attack drills weekly at school.

As for my parents being teenagers during a war and living in London ..,

T’was ever thus.

@shf but at no point have a said its harder now than at any point in history. I was asking if we are moving from one crisis to another, which I think perhaps we are, except that is nothing new.

The NHS on its knees, schools the same,etc etc but our government can always find the money to bomb Yemen, and send spy planes over Gaza and Lebanon. We're watching a genocide in Gaza that will spread to the West Bank shortly - not that the government cares about that either. It seems that being brutal is almost ‘natural’ judging by the number of hideous things going on around the world, much of which don’t get reported on. The dogs bark and the caravan rumbles on. There’s never been a good ‘safe’ time to live. It’s very depressing.

And @ClownFishFin perhaps we are heading worryingly rapidly to ww3. I know a little more about history and current affairs then you are giving me credit for.

Steven Pinker is very good on this sort of thing. He says that you should look at the trendlines, not the headlines. Most metrics of living standards, health and wellbeing are in a long-term gentle upward trend.

There tends to be a marked discrepancy in people's responses when you ask them about the world in general (everything's terrible!) - compared with specific aspects of their own lives or the people they know (actually, we're doing OK!)

@goody2shooz I was having this conversation with a friend earlier. She said she couldn't understand how they can just do these things in our name. It sickens me frankly.

I thought that. I've lived through all of it before, except Covid, more than once, including Vietnam, and grew up a few years after WW2 which my parents lived through. It's life.

It has always been like that, and it will always be like that. It didn't just get like that as you reached adulthood - it is just that you grew old enough to be aware what was happening.

And @LBFseBrom did you never ask as a younger person, is this what the world is really like?

If you think anything currently happening suggests that we are heading for WW3, then you genuinely don't have enough knowledge of history to keep things in perspective.

It has been a bit rocky but really I feel grateful to live here, when I look at world news

It might get more volatile so appreciate what you have imo

73 I was born. I don't remember the 70's with all its crap in the UK but Cambodia and Beirut were still in the news. The ten years before you give me, additionally, falklands, miners strikes, Ethiopia, Romanian orphans, tianamen, Bosnia etc, gulf 1, Berlin wall (good news) and the collapse of the soviets. Oh, Libya, Iran/Iraq, South Africa...and all to a backdrop of (still) waiting for THE BOMB.

AHA, Dexy, Nena aside the eighties were actually really shit 😁 nineties were alright but the recession hit when I finished my a levels and that fucked my entire working life. You youngster you 😉

@TheYearOfSmallThings I'm not sure you have any understanding of my knowledge base so please don't be so condescending.

@Damnloginpopup I think I'm just a rookie 🤣

When I was growing up, we were acutely aware (and frightened) of the IRA attacks in London, Birmingham and Manchester. It was a very real risk in any big UK city!

I also remember the miners's strikes, shortened working week, power cuts. Firemen's strikes, gravediggers strikes, bin men strikes.

And when the news reported thousands of job losses every single day as big employers all over the UK closed down.

Then the Falklands war.

There's ALWAYS something going on, both here and abroad, either financial problems or wars etc.

I haven’t read the thread but try googling before you were born suez crisis, Cold War, three day weeks, strikes, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc