Is This the Golden Age?

What is your position on it all? Are we all going to hell rapidly, or is this the best time ever to be alive?

Ultimately it is your choice, and it depends so much on your consciousness. My experiences last week illustrate this profoundly. I was up in one of my favorite Hudson River towns having lunch on what was arguably a perfect spring day in New York: 73 degrees and a mixture of sun and clouds; a day when everything seemed possible. I had lunch in a simple outdoor café that happens to serve an awesome version of mussels with French fries. I made small talk with the waitress who was trying to get into business school in Copenhagen, Denmark, a place I spent one semester abroad during my junior year. In short, I enjoyed a thoroughly pleasant time with no looming stress factors (my phone was quiet, but not turned off).

It wasn’t crowded at all at this café, and in fact, there was just one other person sitting about ten feet away from me having lunch. He was reading a book by Albert Camus, a French existentialist popular at one time, but mostly forgotten in today’s popular culture. He remarked to me that Camus would be very helpful in today’s world, given the “situation.” That comment told me all I needed to know about where he was in his life. I asked him what situation he was talking about, even though I already knew the answer. And of course, his answer, and the situation, was one of political disappointment. Since I wasn’t letting “the situation” ruin my lunch, my question ended our discourse.

Who are you blaming for what is supposedly missing or ruined in your life? What element of reality are you refusing to accept and learn from?   Are you being controlled by and/or basing your happiness on the headline news?

Think about it, and then decide: is this the golden age for you?