You live in a Golden Age. Why not act like it?

Why This Post Matters

The difficulty of modern life is often framed as unprecedented. The opposite is true.

Reframes are powerful. The range, type and quality of options that will occur to you in life and leadership are based on what you choose to focus on and how you frame it.

Call your life an unfortunate ordeal, and it will be.

Decide you’re in a golden age adventure, and the data is on your side.

Survival Was Once the Ridiculous Exception

In hunter-gatherer societies, life expectancy at birth was roughly 20 to 25 years. The primary reason: childhood mortality. Fewer than 5% lived beyond age 40. Most died before 20.
Agrarian and early industrial societies saw modest gains in longevity, with life expectancy rising to 30–35 years. Still, infectious disease, famine, and childbirth complications meant that only about 10% reached age 60.
In contrast, the modern era—post-20th century—has brought a sharp rise in survivorship. In many countries today, over 60% of the population lives past age 80.

This is not a marginal shift. It is a civilizational inflection point.

If you merge these statistics, you end up with a startling reality: 85-90% of all the humans that ever lived did not get the chance to grow old.

For most of human history:

Childhood was the most dangerous time of life.
Old age was rare and revered.
Death came from infection, injury, or scarcity—not degeneration.
Reproduction was early, frequent, and risky.

The Survival Curve Has Flattened

Visualizing this data makes the shift obvious:

For most of human history, survival curves resembled cliffs—steep drop-offs early in life.
In agrarian societies, the cliff extended further but still fell sharply by midlife.
Today’s curve is almost flat through middle age, followed by a gradual taper in the final decades.
Today’s curve is determined by voluntary lifestyle choices to an unprecedented degree.
It’s not only true that 60% of people survive past 80, but you can make many choices that increase your personal odds of being in that 60%.

This is not a commentary. It is simply a reflection of the historical data. What was once abnormal is now expected.

We live in a golden age the likes of which the world has never seen.

Implications

It is not that life is easy now. But the kinds of challenges most people face—boredom, burnout, ambiguity—are different in kind from the historical threat of nonexistence.

Shift your frame. Seeing these challenges as such can change the way you experience them, and it can revolutionize your energy levels and the options that will occur to you.

In short: the problem has shifted. From surviving the world to navigating its surplus.

Application

Look at the week ahead.

Ask yourself:

Am I confusing discomfort for difficulty?
Where am I acting like I’m under siege when I’m just uncomfortable?
How can I see my current challenges as a gift?
What difficult thing could I do—right now that could move me forward and which any of my ancestors would have seen as a wild privilege?

Then do it.

Yes. Progress isn’t easy. Challenges are real. Difficulties are difficult.

It’s also true that we’ve never had more advantages and opportunity.

Much love and good luck out there. ❤️

— C