Your second paragraph makes sense from my demographic too. I’m a cis white married father that has an education, a career, and a house in a reasonable cost of living area that’s not prone to natural disasters. I am also on the rural-raised end of the white male computer nerd spectrum, so I wouldn’t exactly get beaten up at a trump rally.
I have a pragmatic approach to happiness and life fulfillment, and yeah my little corner of the world here will probably be stable. Probably. But it has been a long time since I realized that giving a shit about the quality of life of other people is one of the most important things about finding some purpose and happiness in the world. Leading a life where you focus on helping others rather than focus on getting ahead of others will genuinely produce better results for oneself.
Before anybody asks, the arbiter of what constitutes “better results” is 90 year old me laying in bed thinking about my life.
So I am fortunate, and I am grateful for that. I think being ungrateful in my situation is not only ignorant, but insulting to those who society punches down on who would absolutely be grateful to have what I do. That’s not being grateful to white Jesus for making me one of the chosen, btw, it’s just appreciating that it’s a good thing to use your dumb luck to improve the world rather than being yet another miserable rugged individualist born on second base and admiring those born on third and throwing rocks at everybody at bat.
The point of all this is that while I should be fine, and there will be bad things I can’t change that I won’t dwell on constantly, to put my head in the sand and live completely in my little bubble and ignore the others in the world would make my life worse.
Your second paragraph makes sense from my demographic too. I’m a cis white married father that has an education, a career, and a house in a reasonable cost of living area that’s not prone to natural disasters. I am also on the rural-raised end of the white male computer nerd spectrum, so I wouldn’t exactly get beaten up at a trump rally.
I have a pragmatic approach to happiness and life fulfillment, and yeah my little corner of the world here will probably be stable. Probably. But it has been a long time since I realized that giving a shit about the quality of life of other people is one of the most important things about finding some purpose and happiness in the world. Leading a life where you focus on helping others rather than focus on getting ahead of others will genuinely produce better results for oneself.
Before anybody asks, the arbiter of what constitutes “better results” is 90 year old me laying in bed thinking about my life.
So I am fortunate, and I am grateful for that. I think being ungrateful in my situation is not only ignorant, but insulting to those who society punches down on who would absolutely be grateful to have what I do. That’s not being grateful to white Jesus for making me one of the chosen, btw, it’s just appreciating that it’s a good thing to use your dumb luck to improve the world rather than being yet another miserable rugged individualist born on second base and admiring those born on third and throwing rocks at everybody at bat.
The point of all this is that while I should be fine, and there will be bad things I can’t change that I won’t dwell on constantly, to put my head in the sand and live completely in my little bubble and ignore the others in the world would make my life worse.