"Unexplained Things" That Probably can be Explained Quite Easily

So, someone posted a question to our local NextDoor forum about why so many people — including young people — seem to be "dying before their time."

Good question!

Of course, the discussion ended up being "taked down" by the admin staff after a bunch of "conspiracy theorists" jumped all over and started proselytizing about doomsday.

I suppose that was predictable enough.

It's convenient to point fingers at Covid and what thereof follows, but in my opinion that's an overly simplistic "get out of jail free card" for something far more complex.

Hint: Life expectancy in the USA has been declining recently while life expectancy in most highly industrialized western nations has continued to rise during the same period. ALL these placed were subjected to Covid.

The COST of a High Standard of Living

In the olden days, many people who toiled endlessly to scrape out a living tended to have fairly short lifespans. Simple translation: They just plain wore out and died. Of course there were exceptions.

In most modern societies with a high standard of living, the "ideal" we strive for is being able to have a high standard of living with less effort, thanks advances in medicine, technology, science and so forth.

When we measure "standard of living," we tend to look at things like income, home ownership, access to healthcare and education, and so forth... makes sense.

The problem is that we're measuring the standard of living, not the quality of living.

The High Cost of OBTAINING That Standard

Whereas people in the US may be every bit as well off as people in Switzerland, Sweden or my native Denmark... the imbalance shows up when we look at the intangible COST of obtaining the status.

When I talk to my relatives back in Denmark — many of whom now have University age kids and beyond — those kids get similar good college educations, and similar good and well-paying jobs afterwards. The difference is that here in the US, our kids start with 20 years of student loan payments ahead of them, while similar Danish kids start from scratch.

Of course, that debt load immediately makes it harder to — for example — be able to buy a home. Having to buy health insurance makes it harder to save up for the down payment, in the first place.

Now, this is not intended as some kind of manifesto related to capitalism vs. other forms of economic systems... just part of theorizing on the alleged early deaths.

We may have a high standard of living in the US, but I believe that what people are required to do to obtain and maintain that standard of living exacts a heavy toll on life.

In a sense, it may be a self-fueling problem. Our kids all have lost friends — all three are in the first half of their 30's now — to "early deaths," related to stress, depression, substance abuse triggered by the above.

Hope is an important part of what keeps us going... and hopeLESSness can easily have the opposite effect. If you live with the sense that there's "not much point" to existence, you end up making choices that don't support longevity... whether consciously, or subconsciously.

And there's a big difference between having to bust your butt 60 hours a week in order to have "the good life," and doing so for 40 hours a week to get essentially the same thing.

Here in the US, we like to wrap work up in a "blanket" that focuses on highlighting having a great work ethic... but what if that is actually the blanket that is killing younger people?

Now, some (or many?) might think this is so much hogwash... and let's remember (A) this a gross generalization and (B) it only takes relatively small percentages to skew the equation so we're not talking about everybody here, just a significant enough number to create an overall trend.

The solution to problems isn't always "throw more effort and money at it."

I'm now going to rejoin Mrs. Denmarkguy and our daughter whose "long relaxing weekend" with us was shortened by work obligations. Case in point, if you get my drift.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week ahead!

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Created at 2023-01-16 00:17 PST
0721/1976