Stop Complaining

Those were the words of Charlie Munger, 98, who is the long time right hand man of legendary investor Warren Buffet. Stop complaining when life today is 600% better than it was when he came of age in the 1930's.

I think what he says about this offers a great bit of perspective when you think about it.

For one thing, as he pointed out, when he was coming of age and through much of his life, there was a time when everyone struggled. For Heaven's sake, they had to live through the Great Depression, and back then there were many less opportunities for safety nets like food stamps and social security disability payments.

Air conditioning was a luxury. The stock market was less accessible to the average person. Jobs paid much less, with many less safeguards for employees—jobs were a take it or leave it affair, and most paid the bare minimum having no concern or interest at all for employee's needs.

Vacations? Forget about it. Not only were they not offered as a benefit like they are now, where would you go? What would you do? Nobody could afford to go anywhere anyway.

You were lucky to just have food on the table, and even then, it wasn't necessarily good food. Lard sandwiches anyone?

Life expectancy was very low and medicine was not nearly as advanced as it is now. For a long time health insurance wasn't even really a thing. If you got sick, it was mostly all out of pocket, because even if you could get health insurance, it was not something offered by employers.

Not so long ago, when you were poor, you were poor. No creature comforts, no luxuries at all. Just poverty. Deep poverty.

Nowadays poor people have cars to drive, they have air conditioning, they have big screen TVs, they have cell phones and computers and Internet access. They typically also have plenty of food on the table thanks to programs like WIC and SNAP.

Granted, I am talking mostly about the United States here. But Munger points out that it is not just an improved condition here, but around the globe as well. Even many of the poor in less developed countries have it better than their ancestors did.

At the same time, think of all of the ways we have now that we can make money. This site is an example of that. And there have been many others before it, and some that still exist today.

People can get paid to play games and write about their daily lives. People can make money by doing surveys. They can earn gift cards to spend playing around on a search site like Bing.

And let's not discount that people are making far more money than they ever did, and there are more laws and regulations in place to ensure safer work conditions and that employers must take better care of their employees.

We live in a world now where I don't need an editor to approve of something I write. I can publish whatever I want. I don't have to wait for some music talent scout to find me and send me over to a record company to sign a contract and record an album. I can do that myself. Justin Bieber got his start just posting singing videos on YouTube.

Even when it comes to the stock market, I have better access now than ever before. Information is literally right at my fingertips. And I can purchase a stock without a single phone call, in an instant, and do the same if I decide to sell.

At the same time I have better and quicker access to my money through online transactions and 24-hour ATM machines.

Sure, people still struggle. It's real. There's no doubt about that and I don't want to come off as naive and say that isn't true for some people. Especially in other parts of the world.

But I do think if we take a step back, and have a look back, it helps to consider a bit of a different perspective to even put our own struggles into better perspective. How bad do we really have it?

I think what it offers is a "coming to terms" with any struggles we might have, and to be more appreciative of the advances we have made over the years. When you appreciate things more, it makes the struggle feel like just a little bit less of a struggle.

Even just thinking in terms of money. Even if we happen to be dirt poor. We have many more opportunities today to join the ranks of the rich than our grandfathers and great-grandfathers did.

And many more people are rich, percentage-wise, today than ever before. The poor are less poor.

Granted, I think many people complain because the only basis they have is the here and now. The only understanding they have is their struggle. Not what the struggle could be. Not what the struggle was.

We don't take the time to acknowledge the advances we have made. We ignore that even at our worst time now, we are far better off than we once would have been.

The greatest achievement of all, perhaps, is opportunity. Something that not so long ago was not offered in nearly the abundance it is offered today. If we take more time to grab hold of it, rather than complain about what we don't have, we stand a better chance of making our own inroads to send the struggles packing.

Lead image courtesy of Pixabay, user Prettysleepy. Complaint Exclamation Skulls - Free image on Pixabay