Things Are Actually Better

I was already at the cash register when I realized I didn't have money in my chequing account for the groceries the cashier was ringing up. I realized that in about 3 minutes my debit was going to come up "denied"
So I got my phone, clicked over to my banking application, transferred the money, and the money was there when I slid my card. Right then.
Things have sure changed just since I became an adult. We went from computers only in universities, to dial-up modems, to a computer in our hands.

I thought how so many things were done the same for about a thousand years, my grandma ran her kitchen very nearly like the women in the 1600's did... but when things changed, they really changed quickly!

I remember learning about the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain, that that's just how things were..and would be forever...but the wall fell quite suddenly, our children don't even know about divided Germany.

Some lament that things are "going to hell in a handbasket," "things are getting worse," "this crazy old world" but you know, we are safer than ever. No barbarians sweep down on us and destroy our village. We worry about our school system, but we have a larger, better-educated middle class than ever before in the history of the world.

People don't die from simple infections, and vaccinations prevent disease--more than ever before. I don't worry that all my children will reach adulthood, something that didn't happen for most of the world's history.
Things are actually better.