Labor Day weekend is as good a time as any to recognize and reflect on good fortune.
I say that, because if you are reading this, you are likely one of the most fortunate people that’s ever lived. I say that not because of the virtues of this website, specifically, but rather because you have the relative luxury and the very good problem of figuring out the best way to maximize your life.
Think about that from a global perspective, where most of the world’s population has lived in poverty, hardship, squalor, and under the thumb of tyrannical governments for most of recorded history. Sadly, most of the world’s population still lives that way.
Instead, you live in the United States in the 21st century. You have more freedom than anyone in history, you have more technology at your disposal than at any time ever, you have more access to education and more money than any society at any time ever, and you are safer than at any time ever.
Let’s face it, we’ve all won the lottery of existence, and the more we recognize that the better off, and the happier, we all will be.
Yes, there are a lot of problems with American society today. There’s the pernicious rise of the “woke left,” and there’s the increasingly disturbingly fringe element on the “nationalist right” that’s threatening our republic—and both of these are part of the tribalism that’s tugging away at the fabric of our nation.
Yet these problems don’t negate the fact that you won the lottery by virtue of your birth at this time, in this place, and that you’ve leveraged good decisions, so much so that one of your concerns is learning about how to be a more complete Renaissance Man.
If you think about it like that, you’re going to smile. In fact, I know you’re smiling right now.
Jim Woods
September 2, 2022
