It’s Better Than You Think

Be Happy – It’s Better Than You Think

The world is an infinitely better place than it 1,000 years ago,  100 years ago, 20 years ago and even 5 years ago. By almost every measurement this is true. The world is a safer place, a healthier place. a happier place. a more peaceful place and a wealthier place.

If you took any one of those conditions and put them on a linear graph the line would consistently trend from the lower left quadrant to the upper right quadrant with some slight dips occasionally – much like the stock market.

Why then, do we think the world is worse than better? There are a few of explanations.

IT’S IN OUR DNA

We are neurologically hard wired to sniff out danger. It’s genetically predispositioned, and it is, to a real degree, a matter of survival. This goes back to our hunter gathering days where real danger lurked in trees or stalked us in high grass. We had to be hyper aware of what was ahead of us, behind us or what awaited us behind the bend in the trail. Bad news plays into our very design and it helped us to prosper in the days where serious injury and death lurked nearby.

IT FEELS GOOD

Good is heartwarming, but it doesn’t grab us and play into our indignation. Being angry is a visceral and REAL feeling and sadly, gives many people purpose. Think of the movies where vengeance and revenge are a central theme. How satisfying is it when the bad guy gets his comeuppance and extracts his pound of flesh? We love revenge – we love with the script flips or the tables turn.

“IF IT BLEEDS IT LEADS”

Bad news is easy to report because it’s event driven. A mass shooting happens in the NOW. An act of terrorism happens in the NOW. An airline disaster happens in the NOW. Good news, and consistent gradual change happens over the course of years, decades….even centuries. Whether or not the world really is getting worse, the nature of news will interact with the nature of cognition to make us think that it is. “News is about things that happen, not things that don’t happen. We never see a journalist saying to the camera, “I’m reporting live from a country where a war has not broken out”— or a city that has not been bombed, or a school that has not been shot up. As long as bad things have not vanished from the face of the earth, there will always be enough incidents to fill the news, especially when billions of smartphones turn most of the world’s population into crime reporters and war correspondents”

Bad things can happen quickly, but good things aren’t built in a day, and as they unfold, they will be out of sync with the news cycle. The peace researcher John Galtung pointed out that if a newspaper came out once every fifty years, it would not report half a century of celebrity gossip and political scandals. It would report momentous global changes such as the increase in life expectancy

Why is this important to know?

For one, the constant bombardment of negativity leads to feelings of gloom, doom, anxiety, lower mood levels an isolation. It can lead to depression and a sense of hopelessness and nihilism.

And finally, we can become mis-calibrated believing that the world is indeed worse off, when in fact, we are better than ever. Negative news leaves a bigger and longer lasting impact on our psyches having a significant impact on our perception of bad in the world vs good in the world.

In the year 2000, all 189 members of the UN AND over 24 International organizations got together and agreed on EIGHT Millennium Development Goals – in other words, goals to accomplish by the year 2015. The list of eight goals were chosen from the following: Life expectancy, poverty, equal rights, literacy, opportunity, peace, access to education, starvation……All are measurable and can be empirically tested.

Shocker – We (the World) wildly exceeded  the goals. In many instances we did so well before 2014! Second shocker – HARDLY ANYONE KNOWS!

To be sure, there is much left to be done as it relates to poverty, inequality and access to opportunity, education….but the work that has been done has lead to exponential improvements.

What can you do? It’s not a matter of not watching the news and keeping up on events. Do so knowing that it’s the media’s job to serve up the bad. It sells. Know that the world is a great place with technological and intellectual advances that are eradicating disease and poverty and that the access to opportunity has never, ever been better.

Finally, spread some good news. Share a positive clip instead of a negative clip. Lift people up. Celebrate good and illuminate to your circle that, although not perfect and much remains to be done, we are in good shape.

Acknowledgement – My thoughts are my own but they were synthesized with the help of Steven Pinker and his books Enlightenment NOW and The Better Angels Among Us: Why Violence Has Declined. I have a couple of quotes from Pinker’s books sprinkled in the blog.