NOT EVERYTHING'S A CATASTROPHE
A Baby Boomer's Point of View
I have only one claim to fame. I’m one of the very first Baby Boomers. My dad, a cargo pilot during WWII, came home from his overseas deployment in early November of 1945. And I was born on August 31, 1946. They say we Boomers are 20% of the American population today, owning 51.8% of our country’s wealth.
Even though I was raised during the Happy Days of the 1950’s, society has been trying to scare me to death since the day I was born. The catastrophizing the government, media, and others do used to make me jump right to the worst possible conclusions.
I laugh now looking back at the times our teachers made us practice hunkering under our desks in case Russia set off a nuclear bomb. I’m still trying to figure out how that desk was going to protect me. Our country went crazy in 1957 when Russia launched Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth. By the time the 3.4 million babies born in 1946 reached their teenage years, movies like the post-apocalyptic On The Beach with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner had us convinced “The Communists are coming! The Communists are coming!” The summer I graduated from high school, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Viet Nam telling us he had to stop the Domino effect “over there.”
After they were done scaring me with Communism, they told me I should panic about the gas shortage in the 1970’s. We might freeze to death. Arab nations, who were upset with the United States’ support of Israel, had imposed an embargo on oil, creating rationing, long lines, and higher costs for Americans. It would have been a blessing if I had been menopausal then, but I was only in my 30’s so I was extremely worried about not having enough heat.
I was starting to get suspicious of the doomsayers in the 1980’s though when they told me I was at high risk from flaking asbestos in my classroom. I don’t know how many in-services we had on how to wet ourselves down and climb out our classroom windows if asbestos fell on us. I was nervous about getting my rear end out that little space. The original EPA regulation that banned asbestos and required schools to remove it was overturned in 1991. I was really glad because I had gained even more weight by then.
Even though COVID -19 spread worldwide in 2020 causing a pandemic, I wasn’t going to let the government or any other alarmists frighten me into believing the world or democracy was coming to an end. I followed all their directives, but I didn’t let them make me hunker under another desk. It’s one of the benefits I’ve found of old age: being able to recognize and challenge a cognitive distortion —that is making something worse than it is. And the fact that I’ve already beat the odds – outliving the 77.5 year life expectancy for Boomers — helps too. Ha!
Now, I have to admit, there is one thing that does make me a bit nervous now-a-days.
My husband is an early riser so he naps a lot. And at our age I find myself putting my finger under his nose all the time to see if he’s still breathing. The last time he woke up and caught me he joked, “One of these times I’m going to hold my breath to see what you do.”
That’s not funny!
Just Breathe.
It’ll Be OK.
~~~
“Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.” - Elbert Hubbard
QUESTION: WHAT ARE YOU MOST WORRIED ABOUT RIGHT NOW?
I’m so glad I learned and am learning not to take everything to “worst case scenarios”. I wanted to say what I’m most worried about is to feed my kids but honestly I’m not even worried about that cause my God is and will take care of us. My main focus is to know my God and do His Will; can’t even say I’m worried about it but that is a concern right now. Like earlier I told him the harder I try to pay off debt the more emergencies happen and the amount goes up instead of down. I was challenged to do an unselfish act once a day intentionally; the more I do that the more things go wrong……. So I was having a conversation about that with Him. No, not everything is a catastrophe.
That would be Bill too!