The World Changes for the BETTER Whether We Notice or Not.
The past year has given us all time to sit back and think about our lives. It was in these hard times that I tried to focus on why the glass is half full instead of half empty. I have taken the time to try my best to stay positive and trust me it is hard for us all. In my opinion though, one thing is true. Change for the better tends to occur in times of the most distress.
During the first few months of the Pandemic, I kept thinking about an article that was shared with me by my old boss titled; This Has Been the Best Year Ever written by Nicholas Kristof at the end of 2019. When I first read the article prior to the Global Pandemic, I found it as an excellent article. As the months went by, I re-read the article prior to sharing it with my Bozeman’s Chamber of Commerce Leads Group and it made me think. I was debating in my head as to whether this was something to share due to all the turmoil that had been taking place. In all honesty, it was more than worth sharing because the facts discussed are still true.
Did you know that every single day in recent years, on average 325,000 people received access to electricity? What if I said that more than 200,000 people a day were getting piped water for the first time? Also, 650,000 people went online for the first time every. single. day…. The article then gave me this shocking statistic. In 1950, take a guess at what percent of children globally died before the age of 15? Would you say it was 1/2? What about 10% because it can’t possibly be half? Shocking, but 27% of children born in the world did not make it past 15. Now, what do you think the figure would be at as of 2019? 10%, 15%? No, it has dropped to a figure of around 4%. The world is getting better around us. Now to global poverty. This is a subject hard to take when you live in the United States. We are fortunate enough to be able to benefit from the most successful economy in world history (although some go through more struggles here than I can imagine, I would still guess it is better than living elsewhere). But this stat isn’t US poverty we are talking about. As recent as the early 1980’s, the percent of people enduring “extreme poverty” (Defined by the UN as people making less than $2 a day) was at an astounding 42%! Where is it now? Extreme poverty is now less than 10% of the worlds population. The news could really discuss these positive trends saying “over 62 million people moved out of extreme poverty this year!”. But sadly, the news is more entertaining when there is something that is worrisome. This doesn’t change the facts that the world is improving around us. Sometimes, we can all just be caught up in the day-to-day and forget about the year-to-year or decade-to-decade. We pay attention a few times a year, but very rarely do we actually notice. Now I am not saying they are still not struggling, because people definitely are. But you can argue that they are relatively less poor compared to their parents or grandparents.
What about this fact: a half century ago, the majority of people around the world could not read or write. We take this for granted in the US but education is not the same outside the US (not saying ours is the best, but it is better than most). As of 2019, we are starting to approach 90% of people around the world being literate. The largest gains have taken place by the education of Women. I would argue that the best asset for our future is education. Women’s Empowerment is driving more change than ever before in education and something I am beyond thankful for.
Now to be clear, we still have problems we all are going to face. Some of these problems are known (Climate Change, Political Unrest etc.) and some remain unknown. But I cannot just look at the problems like there is no solution or only one solution. I do know this, some of the smartest minds in the world are out there working on the problems we face today. The solution might not be integrated as soon as we want it to be, but the change will come. Steve Jobs was always Steve Jobs, but wasn’t known by everyone until he became the Steve Jobs we all saw change the world. The next “Steve Jobs” is out there, they might be in a school, in college, or possibly they are starting that invention that will “change the world”. We will just have to wait for that next person to become who they are destined to be. I can tell you this though, that person IS OUT THERE (Man, Woman or child).
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope that this gave you some form of gratitude for where we are today compared to where we have been. The change will continue with more ups and downs than we might hope, but the down moments are when the most significant change tends to accelerate right in front of us. Sometimes we just need to be reminded of the positives instead of the negatives that will always exist.
-Riley Sisson
Raymond James is not affiliated with and does not endorse the opinions or services of Nicholas Kristof and the NY Times.
Any opinions are those of Riley Sisson and not necessarily those of Raymond James.
