Are you worried for the future of GB and indeed the world?

Dinahmo I could have written your most recent post, but I also remember coping perfectly well with the power cuts and the 3 or was it 4 day week. It was particularly annoying when my office in Covent Garden suffered power cuts being in that “zone” and I’d get back to our flat in Richmond only for all the lights to go out. Life was far from perfect. News pictures of starving Biafran children reduced us to tears and there seemed no end to that conflict. My grandparents emerged blinking from behind the Berlin Wall. But hey, we coped. We coped with IRA bombs in the city, too. Perhaps in the same way that our parents or grandparents “coped” with the blitz .
The thing is, being of an age, your experience is not unique and my reaction on reading this last post is “So what?”
As for all the soul searching and breast beating about the state of the U.K./the world/the universe, perhaps Christmas is making you more reflective but you’re not the first and you won’t be the last.

NotSpaghetti

So, Are you worried for the future of GB and indeed the world?

Just wondering.

Of course I am.

I think we will all survive as we have done for centuries. Things will be different and I think the average person will be poorer and have less ‘things’. I am as worried about the far left as I am about the far right because the far left tend to be more violent these days, sadly. It never used to be that way, this is a recent phenomenon.

think you might find the Right are the violent ones ,just as it was in the past .Most left leaning people in my experience want more equality ,they want the vulnerable and poor to be looked after an what the Labour party was founded on were the same principles as christianity.Labour left us when Blair was elected but there,s still a core support of those values.Money isn.t king /god to most of us unlike the tories both red and blue who punish the poor and give to the rich.I live in the most left leaning part of this DISunited kingdom and I,m happy my taxes help those less well off instead of the clowns in WM who have their noses firmly in the trough getting all they can.....and I include the royal parasites in that.A£45MILLION rise while the ordinary folk are using foodbanks to survive!! of course Charlie and CO use foodbanks too...as PR stunts.Turns my stomach

No. As no point worrying about what you can't control. We all have our own everyday worries which is enough for me

No, I can't say that I do

I try not to worry about anything. Worrying really is s pointless exercise.

What is 'years of working at SE'. I do with people would not speak in capital letters.

Sorry - grumpy from Norfolk.

Worry is like a rocking chair- it gives you something to do but doesn't get you anywhere...

I know this will sound horribly selfish, but yes I am worried. Having no children and grandchildren I don't care about what happens to the world, as I'll be dead before things start to go seriously wrong. The worse thing to happen to this planet is the human race.

I'm deeply concerned about the future for our children and our planet and all it's amazing creatures due to a failure to seriously tackle climate collapse. I see lies, greed and decipt quite openly displayed in so much of public life and the far right and other misogynistic groups threatening our way of life and in particular our autonomy as women. However much it horrifies me, I don't let it worry me on a daily basis and get on with life in the hope things will work out eventually. No point in letting it all make you anxious or ruin your life with worry.

I was raised in the 50s in an area of London that was still badly bomb damaged, an outside toilet, no bathroom, no running hot water or central heating sharing a small Victorian house with one other family, I went to a local primary then on to a grammar school, leaving at 15 as my mother insisted she needed my income. Despite a fairly crappy upbringing I had good jobs in banking and telecommunications. My husband and I went without to raise enough money for a house deposit, I raised five great children all of whom have successful careers, of course I’ve worried about the state of the world especially now I have grandchildren, then I think of what my ancestors lived through and consider myself fortunate to live in a fundamentally good country with mainly principled humans, so I look to the future with positivity.

I did worry about the state of the world when my children were young.
I remember the 1st Gulf war being terrifying because it was televised 24/7.
My third baby started nursery on the day we woke up to the news Desert Storm had begun. I was paralysed with fear for my little ones .
However, I then asked my Mum how she felt and coped during the Cuban missile crisis, when her children were little.
I was surprised to learn she had hardly worried at all.
This was due to simple reason she knew only a little about it which was what the newspapers printed.
She basically lived in blissful ignorance and I sometimes wonder if having access to everything happening in the world in actually helpful to most ordinary people.
Generally, there's not a lot we can do about most things.
We can protest, pray , take in refugees as we did from Ukraine, but mainly we worry and are fearful...and that doesn't help anyone, least of all ourselves.
I'm now approaching 70 and I know about the horrible world out there but I try to avoid " doom scrolling " and stick to reading the news only once a day.
My mind is calmer for it.

Why are you so worried about Sharia Law CountessFosca? I think you’ve been reading the wrong newspapers! One of my daughters married into the Muslim faith over 30 years ago, converting on her marriage. My three wonderful granddaughters all went to university and obtained degrees, two went on to obtain their Masters as did my daughter when the girls were grown. In fact, the only one not attending university was my son-in-law. All three married husbands of their own choosing. My daughter has a wide circle of women friends who are Muslim, many of whom I know. I can’t think of any of these lovely educated women who are being oppressed and held back by this “draconian system” ….

saxongrace - I think what makes me sad about now is , yes, you had a poor childhood & went on to an affluent adult & parenthood. That isn't happening for this generation of young people who've had a poor upbringing.
We had doors opened for us by a "Good Liberal" generation of teachers & significant others who wante a meritocracy, Our parents were poor, but decent & proud working class, on the up.
Since Thatcher there is an underclass which doesn't come from the same place of solidarity, but instead feels ashamed / aggrieved to be the ones who didn't "get on their bikes".They are not inner-city, & they are more likely to be white than racial minorities. & it's not their fault. But for their kids the upward mobility we benefitted from is in 90% of cases, unless they get on some celeb special / football whizz or win the lottery, just not gonna happen.
& the attitude seems to be global now - those who have, keep. Those who don't have, make up something to make it their fault.

I have always worried about the future even as a child in the 50s.

Yes we are worried about our Grandchildren's future. Global control is a threat and it is very concerning about how AI will be taking more and more jobs away.

I try not to worry about everything too much as my fretting won't change anything and I have my life to live. I do often ponder the natural world and the beautiful animals within it who are being destroyed basically by us humans.
The one thing I do fret about... my little grandson has autism. I just want his life to be happy and for him to be surrounded by happiness and security. I just want the world to understand him and be kind to him.

Tattybluebell - I'm hoping that your grandson, obvs loved & secure at the moment, grows up to a world capable of respecting him for what he is & welcoming his ideas.
But - for all that SNE is much more active than ever before,so that while he is a child he will be supported in some manner - the big world out there at the moment takes no prisoners. Where he could have been a holy savant, or a goat-boy, or a carpenter's mate in other times - where, as an adult will this take him except dependency? That's not his fault & need'nt make him unhappy, given a fairly generous welfare state. But other times & other cultures would have found a niche for him, & in present times, WOKEness acknowledged, once he's an adult it is fairly unforgiving.

karmalady

No. My DGC are teenagers and are all aspirational towards professional careers ie medicine, sandhurst, engineering. They are wonderful members of society, kind and caring and there are umpteen thousands like them. Obviously different aspirations but kind, caring, hard working. These young people are the future and they will make their own paths, as most of us did

They sound like my GC & GGC. The future is good if left in their hands.
I remember being frightened over the Cuban missile crisis. I also remember my father ,at the end of WW11 saying that the 3rd world war would start in the Middle East
All we can do is trust to the values we gave to our children.

Well said

And they'll always need plumbers and electricians.
That's my two boys sorted.

Goodness, yes!
Gone are the days when you could rewire your whole house yourself!

So many jobs are essential for society to run well.

Anyone saying Sharia Law is not happening in this country is wrong. I am not saying it happens in 'full' but it does indeed exist. I worked for a housing association many years ago and in the area I worked it did exist. We housed people in areas to get away from Sharia being used on them.