"What if this is as good as it gets?"

[SailinAway]

A philosophical rather than political discussion. I don't intend this politically. I'm interested in how people are thinking about their personal past and future right now.

Remember the movie where Jack Nicholson goes to his psychiatrist's office, sees all the depressed people in the waiting room, and asks, "What if this is as good as it gets?"

I've been wondering that recently. We have four events right now that were unimaginable 20 or 30 years ago: a climate crisis, the Trump phenomenon, the pandemic, and now an economic crash that economists are calling worse than the Great Depression. That's a heck of a lot to deal with all at once, especially if you're in your last quarter of life.

I've been wondering if maybe the best parts of my life are behind me, and the future could be just a battle for survival against these events over which we have so little individual control. That's sort of a bleak thought. It doesn't jive with the American retirement dream . . . which had already disappeared for a lot of people well before the pandemic.

What do you predict for your future?