Good Old Days vs Modern Day

Good Old Days vs Modern Day

Thinking back to the “good old days”, I’m questioning why the world seems to be so much more stressful today. I believe that there a couple of reasons.

The first being finances or lack thereof. In the 70’s and 80’s, the income paid for services was adequate to live a middle income or above lifestyle. Although most families were required to have two people in household working, bills were paid, including car notes, with leftover funds for entertainment. For many families today, even with two people in the household working and sharing older paid off vehicles, there is not

enough income to pay the bills much less having funds leftover.

Income has not kept up with the cost of living.

Far from it, minimum wage has only increased

by 50% while items such as autos have

increased by 525%.

This, obviously, creates stress.

The second reason is judgement of others. During the “good old days”, in most cases, it was assumed that if someone did something that infringed on another or hurt another that it was NOT intentional. In general, people allowed for others to be different and respected that others could

act in ways that did not agree with their own ideas.

Today, there are constant attacks being made on others if those

actions are different from our own. People are quick to assume the worst. “He offends me with his style of dress, he offends me with his tattoos, he took that promotion to hurt me, he purposely ran me off the icy road,

he has to stop coughing because it irritates me…” Do you see

the key word throughout these thoughts?

"ME!"

That is the problem:

We think that everything revolves around our needs

and our desires. We expect others to improve our life rather than

allowing them to have their life which may be different from ours. It is not their responsibility to cater to our likes and desires.

We do not show consideration for others. “Ellen is on her phone

while waiting to see the doctor. Everyone in the waiting room can hear Ellen and her sister’s loud conversation as her phone is set to speaker. This conversion goes on for more than 15 minutes with loud laughter, gossip, and updates of her last vacation.” Ellen thinks that her personal conversation is more important than the sick child who is trying to nap, the woman hoping to read to pass her time waiting, or the nurse who has to raise her voice to

be heard over Ellen’s conversation when

calling the next patient’s name.

We don’t allow for mistakes or accidents. Others will make mistakes. Others will have accidents. Mistakes and accidents are just that. They are not intentional. They are not meant to purposely hurt someone else.

We jump to negative assumptions too quickly. We accuse others of guilt before asking questions. We only care how an incident affected us. Give the benefit of doubt to others. Don’t give a guilty verdict without proper investigation of the action. Assume that the incident was not on purpose and that there is, more than likely, a good explanation for the action.

And remember:

Innocent until proven guilty.