quote:
Oh look, another argguaghhh 70s and 80s 90s was best ever I get it. You were a kid then. You had no responsibilities. Today you do have responsibilities. This has been said forever.

Silly post, but some pretty harsh responses as well.

Let's start this way. “Best ever” is a state of mind, not a state of achievement. Members of that 1977 family may well look back on those days as the "best ever," while you view these days as "terrible." But the irony is you’d not remotely consider swapping your current situation with their “best ever” situation.

For example, look at their house. It’s about a 1400sqft ranch with window unit a/c’s. Inside you’d find cheap construction, linoleum floors, naugahyde furniture, formica countertops, and one or maybe two very low res TVs (which only picked up 3 or 4 stations total). In physical terms there'd be little or nothing in that 1977 milieu approaching your current standards or expectations.

Oh, and their 30-yr mortgage rate? In 1977, it was around 8.5%-9%. The sub-4% rates we’ve seen for the past decade are historically unheard of.

As an aside, when is the last time you drove in a car with roll-up windows like the one in the video? Meanwhile, interest rates on that clunker ran north of 10%.

The point is, it is likely that “best ever” family lived in shite conditions compared with yourself. Ironically, they were probably just fine with their situation, while you seem to fret about yours. Carpe diem, brother. Because tomorrow, you may find that these were the “good ole days,” and you weren’t in the mental space to enjoy them.

Finally, this “my generation has it rough, your generation is stupid” silliness predates Hammurabi and his Code. It’s been going on forever. Most generations think they’ve done great and wonderful things, and the successive generation is soft. Most upcoming generations throughout history have felt like the “old people” don’t get it, whatever “it” is. Now is no different. It is what it is.

This post was edited on 4/28/24 at 9:41 am