Living in Difficult Times II
Another technique that helps me is keeping a list of improvements during my lifetime. I do this so I won't end up as a sour old lady, saying, "Things were better when I was young."
The Civil Rights Movement and the end of Jim Crow; the second wave of feminism; Gay Liberation; the end of the draft; Native Rights movements throughout the world, including the current movements in Venezuela and Bolivia and Ecuador; the Environmental Movement; the test ban treaty...
Antibiotics, the personal computer, the Internet, power wheelchairs, cell phones, a lot of medical technology...
The Dalai Lama was in Minneapolis a few years back, visiting the local Tibetan community, and I went to hear him. He said that he once asked the Queen Mother of England, who was then alive, though very old, if the world had gotten better or worse in her lifetime.
"Better," she replied. "Beyond question."
Why?
"When I was young, women and non-English people were not seen as equal."
The Civil Rights Movement and the end of Jim Crow; the second wave of feminism; Gay Liberation; the end of the draft; Native Rights movements throughout the world, including the current movements in Venezuela and Bolivia and Ecuador; the Environmental Movement; the test ban treaty...
Antibiotics, the personal computer, the Internet, power wheelchairs, cell phones, a lot of medical technology...
The Dalai Lama was in Minneapolis a few years back, visiting the local Tibetan community, and I went to hear him. He said that he once asked the Queen Mother of England, who was then alive, though very old, if the world had gotten better or worse in her lifetime.
"Better," she replied. "Beyond question."
Why?
"When I was young, women and non-English people were not seen as equal."
posted by Eleanor at 7:47 AM
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