Asklemmy

First, it’s getting better, not worse. We just see and hear about things immediately before any context is added, which makes it seem 10x worse.

Second, I try to make an impact on my local world. I try to be a good leader and impact those lives around me. If everyone made a difference we’d truly be much better off altogether.

Having kids helps, it's their problem now.

I‘d highly recommend the follwoing book:

The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker https://books.apple.com/ch/book/the-better-angels-of-our-nature/id457552067?l=en-GB

While it might seem that the world is getting worse and worse, it’s actually quite the opposite. We have less war deaths than any centuries before, social justice is on the rise almost everywhere, poverty is at an all time low. For the last 50 or so years, almost every metric of human wellbeing increased, some significantly.

Doesn’t mean there aren’t any problems and we still have a lot of work to layed out for us. But to say that the world is getting worse and worse is just factually incorrect.

I'm an unremitting optimist who was born in the abyss, and climbed out of it.

Will I one day go back there? Yes.

Will you? Also yes.

However, you'll go there depressed, screaming, full of sorrows, regrets, doubts, and pain, wishing you had just a little more time.

I go there, with a smile on my face, because I'll be going home. I've already lived that, I've had that experience. It doesn't get any worse than the rock bottom, of death's door itself - the murky black sea from which none emerge, king nor beggar.

Absolutely everything between now and then is just extra gravy. Being alive is a miracle.

There's a lot of "statistically, things are better now than they've ever been so don't worry about it" posts in here, but that's cold comfort for the individual person. While accurate, you might as well be making a Tragedy Olympics comment. Things are better than they have ever been, but in the past 10-20 years, things have gotten worse for a lot of people in their daily lives. There are plenty of ways to cope such as alcohol, drugs, video games, and other addictions, but those only push the feeling away temporarily and do nothing to change your situation.

My suggestion is to look at the things that worry you, from least to greatest and from the ones you have the least ability to affect to the ones you can effectively change. And then look at the ones you can personally affect the easiest that would have the largest and most immediate impact on your life, and make a plan on how to work on those. Feeling like you are making some progress towards improving your life makes a huge difference. Maybe it's taking some time one day a week to prep a bunch of meals ahead of time so you don't have to worry about it after work during the week. Maybe it's making sure to walk every day to get some exercise. Maybe it's talking about the issues in your community right now with friends and neighbors, and working together on a way to help solve those. Whatever it is, even a small step is still a step forward towards the life you want.

As a bisexual trans woman who was in middle school when 9/11 happened, I spent my childhood and teenage years watching helplessly as the country around me became more and more openly hostile to anyone who didn't fit the mold of a cis white heterosexual Christian male. And the bigotry has only gotten worse from there. The first 6 months of this year alone, more than 1 anti-trans bill was proposed every single day. 4 out of 10 trans women in the US will be a victim of sexual assault. The average lifespan for a trans person is 30 years due to murder and suicide rates. However, I live in one of the most LGBTQ+ friendly states in the country and have elected officials at practically every level of government who have made it clear that they will fight tooth and nail to keep it that way, so I make sure to support those sorts of politicians at elections and avoid going to states that are currently a threat to my life while I focus on more immediate issues, like the high cost of living and poor wages/job prospects in my town. I spend some time every week just casually looking at jobs in places I would like to live and working on hobbies and skills I enjoy, as I've found that even if it's not related to a field, just showing that you are willing and able to learn a new skill can land you a job. A company will sometimes hire you more on if they like you as a person than on your actual qualifications. Almost landed myself a job on a government contract that way before a medical issue prevented me from working for several years; simply because the boss and others enjoyed talking to me when I would come to pick up their stuff and I did some due diligence to make sure they were taken care of even if the delivery company dropped the ball (and if I picked up extra hours from them? The delivery company got paid and so did I, so it was a win-win).

And when all else fails, there's always spite. Sheer spite has been a great motivator for me in life, because are you really gonna give up before you have a chance to grab that asshole from elementary school who bullied you and rub his nose in the dirt with how great the life you've created for yourself is? Becoming a happy person is the best way to give a giant middle finger to everybody who's ever called you a loser.

This may sound pessimistic, but try to compare yourself with people who live worse than you.

I don't believe the world is getting worse. I believe our knowledge of the world's ills is getting better.

klonopin

There is no guarantee that as a white male you get anything.

That kind of thinking is only present in the racist concept that Europeans have always been at the top.

They haven't. Western Europeans weren't the top of anything until the Renaissance(except maybe at being mostly peaceful, having a measure of women's rights and being outright genocided and colonized by the Romans).

I want to combat all the people saying "um, actually things are getting better"

What they mean to say is "The largely meaningless or deliberately misleading metrics the government uses to make its own report card say things are going great!"

Everybody keeps talking about how the "economy" is so strong. That just means the stock market is doing well and owners of capital are happy.

Meanwhile, the US has the highest rate of homelessness in its recorded history. Worth noting that the way numbers are reported for things like homelessness, unemployment, and the like are very intentionally designed to under-report.

Local, state, and federal government all have a long history of changing the method of reporting/calculating those metrics during a term in office so they can say "unemployment dropped 30% under my watch!" When all they really did was not count 30% of the people previously counted.

Yes, wages are finally rising, and it has nothing to do with the government. It's entirely the work of unions and organization of labor to raise wages, and it's still got a long way to go.

The best thing that anyone can do is vote for better representation at every opportunity.

The best thing that not everyone can do is talk to a doctor if you have signs of depression or other mental illness. Yes, it's possible to have those things brought on by circumstance, and no, that doesn't mean you don't have to do anything about it.

If you can't afford doctor's visits like that, look up non-profit health care organizations. You may be lucky enough to have real, free Healthcare options available through places like Good Samaritan.

And don't forget to let yourself acknowledge the REAL progress of the world. We're seeing rapid development and insight on treatments for cancers, dementia, new vaccines, renewable tech, and computational efficiency.

There are many broken systems to overcome, but even still there are incredible humans building the foundations for an incredible future if we keep working at it. Maybe we can help make sure Gen Alpha gets a fair shot.

I have several ways I cope:

Satisfaction that the rich are going to get fucked by climate catastrophe and ecosystem collapse just as much as everyone else. The climate change deniers will starve just like the rest of us.

It's been billions of years before I existed, and potentially trillions of years afterwards. I'm incredibly lucky to be aware and thinking, so why should I complain about stuff happening after my spark of awareness has faded?

Earth will continue without humans just fine, eventually getting swallowed by the Sun. Nothing humanity has done will survive.

Celebrate being alive to experience the universe.

Philosophy and learning to accept what you cannot control. It's an everyday struggle, but overtime you can form new, more positive, habits. Setting attainable goals for yourself can be one way to help you along this path.

Just be depressed and try to distract myself. At one point I thought I could change things by getting involved in politics. I very quickly realized how pointless that was. Of course now even my distractions also keep getting ruined. So... idk.