The minute you turn on any kind of screen these days, you get Smacked (had to) with doom and gloom. Every talking head wants you convinced the world is ending for a dozen different reasons. An AI bubble. Climate panic. Politics. Global unrest. Pick your apocalypse.
And look, I’m not saying none of this is happening. I’m not naïve, and I’m definitely not telling you everything is perfect. I’m just saying something unfashionable:
There are more positive things happening right now than at any point in human history, and no one is talking about them.
We live in the best time in history. Literally ever.
People live longer than any generation before us.
We have access to more information than entire empires did in the past. There’s less people living in poverty than ever before.
And for the first time, anyone, truly anyone, can build something from nothing.
Less than 100 years ago, most people lived and died within a 20-mile radius. Entire life arcs played out in the same few streets.
That’s less space than our ancestors roamed freely 50,000 years ago.
Today, you can wake up with a half-baked idea, Google a few things, and by lunch you’re basically running a company. You can reach thousands of people online. You can learn a skill in a weekend. You can meet a business partner on the other side of the planet. You can build software without knowing how to code (trust me, I’m learning this one in real time).
All the tools people used to dream about?
Sitting on your phone. Free.
And still, somehow, the mood is “everything’s going downhill.”
I don’t buy it.
If anything, this is the most uphill moment humanity has ever had. A moment where optimism isn’t just a personality trait, it’s an advantage. Being hopeful is contrarian now. Believing in the future is contrarian. Building anything at all is contrarian.
While everyone else is arguing on Twitter, people are quietly inventing the future in garages, bedrooms, and coffee shops. You just don’t hear about it because optimism doesn’t trend.
Here’s the real cheat code:
While everyone is doomscrolling, the people who stay curious, upbeat, and bold are going to run circles around the rest of the world.
Yes, the world is messy.
Yes, there are problems.
But there have always been problems. Humans are incredibly good at solving them when we’re not paralyzed by fear.
If you’re alive right now, reading this, with access to the internet and a brain that still tries to create things, you basically won the cosmic lottery.
So laugh more. Smile at the absurdity of how lucky we are. Experiment. Send the email. Build the product. Take the risk. Try the unreasonable thing.
Because honestly?
What a time to be alive.
- Mack