It's a pretty harrowing thought that given my age (barely still a teen) I may not live another 50 years. Between the mass pollution tainting our world, impending global warming and increased civil unrest, I figure the odds that my animal reaches 70 are not very high.
>Between the mass pollution tainting our world, impending global warming and increased civil unrest, I figure the odds that my animal reaches 70 are not very high.
You are living in approximately the safest time ever. The Internet has just made civil unrest visible when it would just be page 3 in a newspaper before that you wouldn't care about.
People living in the 80s in the US were in a war-zone by today's standard. Lead was in the paint and the gas not long before that.
Are the numbers growing in absolute terms, or is the reported disasters that are growing? Before satellites, 24-hour news, the internet and social-media + camera phones, a lot of natural disasters went unreported. Now you will find clips of a disaster with two dozen different viewpoints, before, during and after, all in high resolution[1]. So what decades ago would have been a short, nondescript page-3 article about tragedy at an exotic place halfway around the world, is now gripping TV (with very high ratings) in the present day.
Fair point - but that was a neat example of the kind of coverage modern-day disaster get. The Puebla earthquake also had countless videos, but none were curated in one package like the Beirut explosion.
I'm in my 50's when I was your age we were all going to destroy each other with a nuclear war. Relax, it probably won't happen, all these problems get sorted out, (until they don't, then it doesn't matter).
The environment likely has many less free toxins than it did when the author of the link was a teen.
We have things to be concerned about (PFAS and microplastics for instance), but there are a bunch of areas where massive progress has been made in the last 50 years.
PFAS were mass manufactured during ww2 for missile and aero- o-rings, so she survived that too.
Public health says biggest issue today is overconsumption, e.g. almost 50% obesity rates. For environmental concerns that we have control over, PM2.5 is my top (asthma, etc.)
Between the news, being told by my parents that the Soviets could bomb us at any time and being poor I thought that I wouldn't live past 30, and now in my fifties (with multiple heart and lung issues) I wish I had made better choices; especially about smoking (don't) and diet.
My advice would be to nourish and exercise your animal with the assumption that you'll reach 80.
Stop watching cable news and listening to the prognostications of celebrities who got where they are through their looks or ability to act.
The biggest problem we have today is that kids have no context that tells them how great they have it, so they're like putty in the hands of those who would use them to gain political power. Like some kind of emotional vampire, those vested political interests gain power from your fear and your willingness to be mobilized by it.
Most of us who have a few decades on you would gladly take another 70 years of youthful existence to experience life and see where this world goes next.
In just the past 5 years, men and women both younger (and much older) than you have travelled by foot across multiple nations' borders, looking for one that would take them in. Yes, you may die in the events of the future, but don't underestimate your survival instinct.
In my line, male smokers/heavy drinkers die 20+ years earlier. My dad and brother died in poor health at 58 and 59 respectively. The men who didn't serially abuse themselves lived into their 70s to late 80s - generally on their own.
Don't most people get their news over their phone or tablet these days? Throwing those out would probably have a professional cost.
I mean, you're not wrong, the best thing one can do for their mental health is avoid social media and current events. But it may not always be completely practical.
