Happy New Year

The New Year is both a time for looking back and looking forward, for taking stock and setting personal goals. I will do that soon enough—increasing my net worth and reducing various health-related measures (weight, blood pressure, triglyceride levels, etc.) being my principal concerns—but just for today I’d like to list some of the things that I don’t have to worry about.

• Clean water is inexpensive and plentiful. Water-borne disease is one of the biggest killers in human history but is not a problem in San Francisco in the year 2004; neither is thirst or drought.
• My family and friends are closer—literally--than ever. I travel on a commuter train between San Francisco and San Jose, but using my mobile phone I can instantly talk to my mother and father, who live over 2,000 miles away in Hawaii. If I want to visit, I can fly to their side within six hours.
• The setting of the sun doesn’t mark the end of the day. Abraham Lincoln famously strained to study by the firelight, but now there is no human activity that can’t be performed after dark; some, like Britney Spears concerts, occur only at night.
• There are countless ways to dispel boredom. A partial list of contemporary methods to escape ennui while, say, riding the bus home from work: newspapers, paperback books, magazines, portable gaming devices, MP3 players, radios, and CD players, laptop computers, personal digital assistants, and cell-phones.
• Starvation. On the contrary, over-consumption of food is arguably the number one health problem in 21st century America.
• Emergency services are only six minutes away. Several households in my neighborhood can attest to the reliability of our fire, police, and paramedic response teams.
• My bank accounts are insured by the Federal Government, so I don't have to worry about taking out all my money if my bank has had some losses.

My cup is more than half-full. By the historical standards of the human race it is running over. © 2004 Stephen Yuen

[Update (1/21/04): Gregg Easterbrook's book about how life has never been better has gotten a lot of notice.]