I feel like I don't belong here...
- Thread starter puffymilk
- Start date
No, I don’t feel the same way. I don’t wish I had been born in a different era, because the reality is that no time in history has ever been truly peaceful, easy, or free from pain. Struggles—both personal and global—have existed in every generation.
People often look back at the 90s or early 2000s and imagine they were happier, simpler times. But that view is usually shaped by nostalgia or selective memory. In truth, those decades had just as many problems as today, just in different forms. There was still poverty, homelessness, hunger, war, terrorism, racism, abuse, crime, addiction, disease, mental illness, and human suffering of all kinds. Many people felt lost, alone, and forgotten—just like people do now.
Every era has carried the weight of financial struggles, social injustice, broken systems, and emotional pain. Human cruelty didn’t begin in recent times. Predators, kidnappers, murderers, traffickers—they’ve always existed. So have inequality, depression, discrimination, corruption, and exploitation. The problems we see today are not new—they’re part of the long, tragic thread that runs through all of human history.
It’s okay to miss certain aspects of the past—music, culture, aesthetics—but that doesn’t make those times better overall. A cool phone design or a popular TV show doesn’t erase the suffering people endured or the darker realities many lived through.
While today’s world can feel overwhelming with constant news, fast technology, and social pressure, we also have more tools than ever before to learn, grow, speak out, and support each other. That doesn’t make life easy, but it gives us more ways to cope, connect, and survive.
Longing for another time won’t take away the complexity of being alive. Meaning isn’t found in an era—it’s found in how we live through our challenges, how we care for each other, and how we build something worthwhile even when the world feels heavy.
People often look back at the 90s or early 2000s and imagine they were happier, simpler times. But that view is usually shaped by nostalgia or selective memory. In truth, those decades had just as many problems as today, just in different forms. There was still poverty, homelessness, hunger, war, terrorism, racism, abuse, crime, addiction, disease, mental illness, and human suffering of all kinds. Many people felt lost, alone, and forgotten—just like people do now.
Every era has carried the weight of financial struggles, social injustice, broken systems, and emotional pain. Human cruelty didn’t begin in recent times. Predators, kidnappers, murderers, traffickers—they’ve always existed. So have inequality, depression, discrimination, corruption, and exploitation. The problems we see today are not new—they’re part of the long, tragic thread that runs through all of human history.
It’s okay to miss certain aspects of the past—music, culture, aesthetics—but that doesn’t make those times better overall. A cool phone design or a popular TV show doesn’t erase the suffering people endured or the darker realities many lived through.
While today’s world can feel overwhelming with constant news, fast technology, and social pressure, we also have more tools than ever before to learn, grow, speak out, and support each other. That doesn’t make life easy, but it gives us more ways to cope, connect, and survive.
Longing for another time won’t take away the complexity of being alive. Meaning isn’t found in an era—it’s found in how we live through our challenges, how we care for each other, and how we build something worthwhile even when the world feels heavy.