evidence that things are getting better
lessons from remarkable women and how the world is improving
As a little girl in Clam Harbour, my grandmother used a bucket to get water from the well.
In the winter, they put a stone in the bucket to break the ice in order to have water.
One day?
The could afford a hand pump.
This was evidence that things were getting better.
As a girl and young woman, she only had shoes in the winter time.
Now?
She wears shoes year round.
More evidence that things are getting better.
When her mother took ill quite young, there were no painkillers, no medicines. Women from the village used to sit with her while she screamed in agony while my grandmother - still a child - took care of the affairs of the house.
Now?
My mother gets medicine for her auto immune disorder and has lived for fifteen years.
I’ve had fifteen years with my mother, that would have been borrowed time for my great grandmother.
More evidence that things are getting better.
Back then, polio, measles, mumps and rubella ravaged rural Nova Scotia.
Then came the vaccines.
The diseases were eliminated.
Still more evidence that things are getting better.
As a child my great aunt Verna was sickly.
No one in Lake Charlotte knew what to do with her.
Somehow?
They found a way to get her to Boston.
Somehow, they found a way to look after this poor frail child’s heart.
Late in life she told me how scary it was. How awful it was to be away from her father, mother and the boys who she loved so dearly.
She outlived everyone.
And?
Now?
When a child is ill in Nova Scotia - even in the most remote of places, they have an entire hospital dedicated to them.
And at this hospital, thanks to Dr. Wong, we even have someone who can do open heart surgery on babies.
Unthinkable when Verna was a child.
When Verna was a child, poor, rural children’s deaths were commonplace.
Now, they are an outrage.
More evidence of things getting better.
If you are blessed to know some elders.
If you have the joy of knowing people in their 90’s who were raised rural and poor, take some time and talk to them.
This will have two great benefits to you.
1: You’ll be off the bull shit social media machine
2: You might just realize how lucky you are to be alive right here and right meow
Given how bombarded we are with horrific news and pessimism, it’s remarkably foolish to think that things are improving.
And?
I happen to be a remarkable fool.
Are you remarkably foolish too?
Share your evidence that things are getting better by commenting here:
I’ll follow this with a talk about another two super important women in my life tomorrow.
The world is absolutely getting better! More people have access to democracy and education than ever before, child mortality rates are falling, literacy rates are rising, absolutely poverty rates, hunger and homicides are dropping, more people than ever have access to anti-malaria bed nets, and to the internet, the guineaworm has almost been eradicated, solar energy is getting cheaper and cheaper — it’s good stuff!
We had just launched a digital classroom management system called BrightSpace about 2 years before COVID hit. We could all use the basic components.
And Teams, Zoom for business, was being launched. We had just launched the systems to operate virtually within months of having to operate virtually or shut down. How many times was I shaking my head over our lucky timing.
We operated. People succeeded. I kept thinking of the Spanish Flu. Technology left few options. Things had become better. Oh, and we haven't talked about how fast you can create a vaccine when the world's best minds are lazer focused and well funded.