Look back across all of known history, you will see peoples invaded, impoverished, plagued with diseases, enslaved, and subjected to all manner of hardship. Read the Book of Job and empathize with his trials and suffering. Undoubtedly there are examples of entire people that essentially gave up in hard times, perhaps we have few records of such people as their own cowardice ensured they were forgotten. However, what we see, across time and cultures is that humans live, thrive, raise families, and struggle on even through the most difficult of times. Art does not cease to be produced, children are born, people fall in love, grieve the loss of elders when they die, work, play, and live - always. If this were not so, we simply would not be here today.

Even if you take two particularly egregious historical moments, the Trail of Tears and the Holocaust you find stories of love, hope, and life, even when it was dire and hope was forlorn.

Throughout history, humans have lived their lives, even under austere circumstances.

In 2020 we look around and wonder, what comes next. Even those disinclined to see conspiracy theories about government overreach and control as valid now look around and wonder just how far this all could go. Can we trust elections, can we trust the government to maintain order and justice, can we trust our neighbors? These are not unreasonable questions or concerns.

Read and re-read the Book of Job

A young person in high school or college might wonder what is in it for them, what does their future really look like. It might be easy to look around and wonder what is the point. They see a world where they cannot freely express their ideas, where social norms and social circles will quickly turn on them if they do not signal the right virtues. They wonder what will be left to them in a system that is willing to take on historical amounts of debt that can never be repaid. They must wonder if the generations in power now and those just a few years older than them calling for more radical and extreme measures are not condemning them and their future children to poverty, chains, and unhappiness.  (the chains and poverty piece might be true, but happiness is the sole right of each individual, no matter the circumstance.