Count yourself lucky

We are so lucky to live in this century. What are the odds that of the billions of people to ever live on this planet our speck of life happened to be born into this century? Let me state a few examples of why we are so lucky. Take the washing machine for example, one thousand years ago; you had to wash every item of clothing or anything by hand on a wooden washboard if you even had that. This also is in the conclusion that you had more than one outfit. I read somewhere that at the beginning of summer you took a single bath, washed your one pair of clothes, or if you were lucky, you put on your new pair, and then were sewed into them. By sewed into, I mean that the stitches on the clothes were made while you were wearing them, leaving no room to get in or out of them again. In this century, we complain that we do not have enough, so we buy more, and we wash them after every time we wear them, whether they were worn for three hours or a whole day. All we have to do to wash them is stick them in the big white box, add some soap, and push a button.
Here is another example, if you needed food in one thousand AD, then you butchered, or grew most of it yourself, you only went to the market to get the necessary items you could not get for yourself. You did not have much variety either, you got what you got, and if you did not like it then you went hungry. Now, you go to the grocery store and have whole racks of different kinds of cheese, beans, grain, even milk. Who ever heard of four kinds of milk back then? No one. And we did not toil in the fields for months to get it either, maybe if we were farmers, but even they have new machinery to make things easier on themselves. No, to buy our groceries, we sit in air conditioned offices and pushed buttons with our fingers. I think that they would have gladly switched with us. Granted, our jobs are hard on our brains, we have had training to do them. I think that it may have done us good to work in the fields for months on end. Perhaps we would have less obesity in America if we did.
Ok, I do not want to get really negative or anything so I will stop there. I just think that we should recognize how lucky we are to live where we do, when we live, and how we live our lives. Our new gadgets make life a piece of cake compared to how things used to be, and we want more more more. Our new amazing gadgets also deplete the worlds’ resources, we can have our gadgets, since they have helped the human race survive, but would it be too much to ask to try and conserve electricity and turn off our lights? Or maybe to walk to our neighbors house instead of drive? Please don’t think that I’m a tree hugger because I’m not, but I just want to give anyone who reads this a few things to think on.