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.

The historian Arnold Toynbee said ‘Life is just one damn thing after another’.

You ain't seen nothing yet. Just wait until AI causes massive disruption in the labour market, obliterating jobs all over the world. That is going to be fun.

Our media makes the world seem worse than it actually is. It's not all that bad in the grand scheme of the history of the world.

It was ever thus. My parents lived through 2 world wars, my father was evacuated, my mums street bombed. They owned a big home when I was growing up but expectations were lower - there was no central heating for a long time, my Mum spent all day on Friday doing the wash with a twin tub and mangle. We had family holidays every other year and everything was second hand. No colour TV till I went to university.

In the 70s we had the 3 day week, continuous strikes, rubbish building up in the streets and power cuts. The 80s Thatcher, the miners strike and Falklands War. It's goes on and on.

What does worry me is the focus on consumption and throw away society - half the things we think we need we don't. I have 10 times as many clothes as my Mum ever had.

I think we had an era of low anxiety after the Berlin Wall came down. That was such an optimistic time and carried on. I remember thinking at the time l don’t have to worry about nuclear war anymore ( born in the 60’s, the 80’s were a scary time to live).

But then the Balkan war and then Iraq etc etc.

l think the world is more tense these days. But no worse than the 80’s.

'A series of Unfortunate Events' 😂

I think it's always been the case. Now we have rolling news 24 hours a day. When I was a kid you had news at 6 then at 10, that was it. Now you have hundreds of channels beaming out 24 hours a day. There is so much more scope to report on all the bad things that are happening throughout the world and even within the UK.

You also have the internet with conspiracy theories and people catastrophising all over the place.

People are certainly more aware of things but I'm not sure that the world has changed in terms of one crisis after another happening.