Is The World Ending? Am I Vaccinated?

     It's pretty easy to look outside right now and determine that the world has completely gone to hell. The military is being briefed over the threat of China. Media keeps showing us that we are escalating tensions with Russia. Oh yeah, there's covid too. Amidst all of this however, there is reason to be optimistic toward the future. Taking a look at the past we are right now living in one of the most free and abundant moments in history. I think we fail to recognize that world war II ended less than 80 years ago. That's about one persons lifetime ago. Looking just a little further back than that and you realize that it wasn't common for regular people to have access to toilets until just a little over 100 years ago. Could you imagine having to run to your outhouse in the cold just to make a poopy? That would be terrible! Beyond those challenges people really only started to live past 30 or 40 years old after the year 1900. We often romanticize history in movies, books, and television. Then people say crazy things like oh I wish I grew up back then. No, you really do not wish you grew up back then. People had to have 8 or 9 kids cause they expected most of them to die from licking a bad plant or getting a small infection. I am not advocating for blind optimism or apathy toward the current state of affairs, but with this perspective I hope that we can recognize how blessed we are to be alive right now. Things will eventually get better even if they get worse in the short coming weeks, months, or years. Then after the world gets better, it will get bad again. That is the cyclical nature of history. There is a saying I really like I don't know where it is originally from, but it goes: "Good times make weak men, weak men make hard times, hard times make strong men, strong men make good times." And so the cycle goes on like that forever. I believe we are entering one of these hard times that are going to produce strong men and women. 

    Personally I have not received the vaccine. It still seems very experimental and I don't know anyone in my own life who has gotten the vaccine and not been out of work sick for at least a two or three days. I work everyday and really can't afford to take off. There are definitely at risk people who I think it's smart for them to take the emergency authorized vaccine, but I am a very healthy 22 year old so I'd rather get covid, show symptoms, and stay home so that I don't spread it than be vaccinated, not show symptoms and give it to someone at risk. Soon as it is fully approved by the FDA then the Coast Guard will force me to get it so when that happens I'll be a good little sailor and take my shot. I think the lockdown fatigue is very real at this point though. How long can we keep this up?