In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these. — Paul Harvey

In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.

Author: Paul Harvey

Insight: We live in an age of apocalypse fatigue. Every week brings a fresh crisis that feels unprecedented, world-ending, the worst it's ever been. Social media amplifies this feeling—the algorithm loves urgency and dread. So when someone suggests that things have always been chaotic, our first instinct is to dismiss it as naive nostalgia. But there's real wisdom here that's worth sitting with. History is basically a long record of people living through genuinely terrible circumstances and still finding ways to move forward. Wars, plagues, economic collapse, social upheaval—none of these are new. The difference is that people in the 1940s or 1860s didn't have the luxury of knowing about every crisis simultaneously. They dealt with their immediate situation, adapted, and persisted. That doesn't minimize today's problems, but it does deflate the special terror we attach to living "in times like these." The non-obvious part? This isn't really about feeling better through pessimism. It's about proportion. Knowing that humans have weathered genuine catastrophes before doesn't mean today doesn't matter—it means today is something we can actually affect, rather than something that requires us to believe we're living in uniquely doomed times. That shift in perspective can be surprisingly freeing.