Perspective

Yooper

Up. Identified. Lase. Fire. On the way.
Randomly surfing the interwebs I stumbled across this:

I inserted paragraph breaks for readability....

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It’s a mess out there now. Hard to discern between what’s a real threat and what is just simple panic and hysteria.

For a small amount of perspective at this moment, imagine you were born in 1900. On your 14th birthday, World War I starts, and ends on your 18th birthday. 22 million people perish in that war.

Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until your 20th birthday. 50 million people die from it in those two years. Yes, 50 million.

On your 29th birthday, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, the World GDP drops 27%. That runs until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy.

When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren’t even over the hill yet. And don’t try to catch your breath. On your 41st birthday, the United States is fully pulled into WWII. Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million people perish in the war.

At 50, the Korean War starts. 5 million perish. At 55 the Vietnam War begins and doesn’t end for 20 years. 4 million people perish in that conflict.

On your 62nd birthday you have the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on our planet, as we know it, should have ended. Great leaders prevented that from happening.

When you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900.

How do you survive all of that?

When you were a kid in 1985 and didn’t think your 85 year old grandparent understood how hard school was. And how mean that kid in your class was. Yet they survived through everything listed above.


Perspective is an amazing art. Refined as time goes on, and enlightening like you wouldn’t believe. Let’s try and keep things in perspective. Let’s be smart, help each other out.

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I'm more than a little embarrassed to say that this hit home. I guess I, too, needed a bit of reminding....

--- End of line (MCP)
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
PS, you also peed and pooped in an outhouse. Even in the middle of the night. Even in the dead of winter in the middle of a snowstorm.

Our ancestors were awesome bad asses. :yay:
 

PeoplesElbow

Well-Known Member
PS, you also peed and pooped in an outhouse. Even in the middle of the night. Even in the dead of winter in the middle of a snowstorm.

Our ancestors were awesome bad asses. :yay:
I think a lot used a chamber pot and it stayed in ther with you until emptied. I think I'd rather poop outside.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
If any of you ever take a car trip out west, look at the landscape. Then imagine traveling that with no roads, in a horse drawn wagon, without a reliable map.

It's surprising that Californians are such candy asses now, considering that they come from people who did that chit all the way across the whole US.
 

Louise

Well-Known Member
If any of you ever take a car trip out west, look at the landscape. Then imagine traveling that with no roads, in a horse drawn wagon, without a reliable map.

It's surprising that Californians are such candy asses now, considering that they come from people who did that chit all the way across the whole US.

The trunk that went on a journey by wagon to CA by my ancestors is in my house . I see it every day. There is a small valley in CA named after my family.
 
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BOP

Well-Known Member
PS, you also peed and pooped in an outhouse. Even in the middle of the night. Even in the dead of winter in the middle of a snowstorm.

Our ancestors were awesome bad asses. :yay:
Been there, done that. With a kerosene lantern.

I must be an ancestor.
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Our ancestors were awesome bad asses. :yay:
No kidding. I'm still impressed by the stump fence MY ancestors made, in Michigan.
See, when they purchased the land - it was a forest. With HUGE trees. Once they cleared the land - and built their homes with the wood cleared - they had to hitch up a team of oxen - and some mighty strong men - to yank out these massive stumps and plant them along the property line. That was over a hundred years ago - that damned stump wall is still there. For some reason, stump wood doesn't decay very well.

Some of those stumps are the size of some people's family room. And it wasn't a whole town effort - perhaps less than a dozen. And it's a big farm.

Grandpa fought in WW ONE. Came back with a lung affected by mustard gas. So they removed a lung - and a kidney. With whiskey as anesthetic.

Yeah. BAD ASS.
 
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