The last few years I have been on a lot of airplanes and occasionally I will get an upgrade that includes meals. During a recent trip I marveled at the quality of my meal and how far airline food had come since the “TV-dinner” style foil pans that they used to pass for food. Now, it is practically gourmet!

I’m an optimist at heart. The glass is usually half-full. Many of the conversations I’m in strike an ominous tone – carrying the idea that things are bad and getting worse.   It doesn’t help that the most extreme voices (on both ends) get systematically elevated across all forms of media.

But the broader facts tell a different story. Things are getting better. Lots of things.

Consider…

• Poverty – the percentage of world population living in extreme poverty has gone from about 75% to 10% in the last two hundred years.
• Life Expectancy – since 1900 the global average life expectancy has more than doubled and is now above seventy years.
• Infant Mortality – from 1800 to 1950 the global infant mortality rate halved from around 43% to 22.5%. Since 1950 it has dropped fivefold to 4.5% in 2015.
• War Deaths – war deaths have been declining since WW2. In the early post-war era, around half a million people per year died through direct violence in wars. In recent years, the annual death toll tends to be less than 100,000.
• Natural Disaster Deaths – the annual number of deaths from natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, droughts, storms, wildfires, and extreme temperatures is 75% lower than it was a century ago.
• Women’s representation – women now average about 25% in national parliaments worldwide – up dramatically over last several decades.

We are living longer and better lives than our ancestors.  I am alive today because of incredible medical advances in cancer treatment and stem cell transplantation.  The next time you get to thinking that everything is bad and getting worse . . .be encouraged! In many meaningful ways….the world is getting better.  

toodling and noodling, stan