When the world seems really crazy these days, I like to remember that it has always been this upsetting. The difference is that we didn’t have to hear about it twenty-four hours a day. 

I think about my parents, who lived through World War II as young adults. How must the world have seemed to them? They told us stories about how they volunteered their time to watch and identify the airplanes that flew overhead. Every day, there were new headlines about the progress of an entire world truly at war from Asia to Europe. How unsettling those days were.

Everyone was pitching in for the war effort, tending their Victory Gardens, saving every scrap of metal and anything else that could be re-used. Food and gas were rationed and though they worked and prayed for victory, there was no guarantee that the Allies would defeat the forces of fascism. My uncle Perk Robisch was over in North Africa and later in Italy, where he served in the Army demining the fields in advance of the troops. His mother would find four-leaf clovers, press them in her Bible, and mail them to Perk, determined to keep him safe. Perk made it home after the war, but imagine the stress and worry that he and his family had to live with.

Suffice to say, those were traumatic times.

Likewise, when I was a teen, our nation was going through the Viet Nam, a very unpopular war that divided us as a country. Thousands of young people took to the streets to protest, and it was a time of deep unrest. In the midst of all this, President Richard Nixon was caught up in the Watergate scandal and chose to resign rather than face impeachment. Again, things seemed to be a mess, and many wondered about the future of our country.

Of course, before either of the events mentioned above, our nation was torn asunder by the Civil War.  

And yet, we are still here.  So, in spite of the deep divisions that seem to split us today, I still believe that most of us want to live peaceably with our neighbors and protect the institutions that have made our nation strong over the years.

Most of us are happy with this country in spite of its flaws and failures, and we desire to keep our nation free from fascism for us and our children.

My point is this—there have always been troubles and division in our society—but I would argue that the advent of social media and the 24-hour news cycle makes everything seem much worse.  To be clear, we humans have always had problems and issues that threaten the peace, but we have always somehow muddled through, and things have gotten better.

I have to believe that we will survive these frightening times and that we will come out stronger and better on the other side. Too many people have given too much to have it end any other way.

We will be okay.