Pearly Gates: The world’s not so bad after all, y’all

Consider this a continuation of last week’s column about how hopes, dreams and resolutions for the new year so often seem to end in a big dose of the same ol’, same ol’ (or worse) … yet we still go on hoping, dreaming and, ideally, doing.

Here’s a little something that might give us an added jump-start for all of the above: the news that we’re not doing so bad in the first place.

Or so says Bill Gates, who’s doing a lot better than pretty much all of us.

Gates, multi-bazillionaire and Microsoft daddy, decided to guest edit the Jan. 15 issue of Time magazine, which went out Jan. 5, and wrote an editorial explaining why. The issue is titled “The optimists.” Contributors such as movie director Ava DuVernay, philanthropist Warren Buffett, singer Bono and Democratic U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia wrote about the things that help them keep their faith in humanity, as the saying goes.

In “Why I decided to edit an issue of Time,” lead optimist Gates explains that despite all the crazy-bad things going on, the world is actually improving, not going to youknow-where in a handbasket.

“This is not some naively optimistic view; it’s backed by data,” he points out. “Look at the number of children who die before their fifth birthday. Since 1990, that figure has been cut in half. That means 122 million children have been saved in a quarter-century, and countless families have been spared the heartbreak of losing a child.”

And listen up, 99 percenters. Bill, of the 1 percent, goes on to make additional points that bear out his statement: As recently as 1990, more than a third of all people on the planet lived in “extreme poverty.” That number has gone down to 10 percent. Women make up a fifth of the membership in the parliaments of this world’s countries, and are now being listened to when they speak up about sexual harassment instead of being told to go home and get over it, honey.

“More than 90 percent of all children in the world attend primary school. In the U.S., you are far less likely to die on the job or in a car than your grandparents were,” Gates continues.

Wow. One could wax cynical about a rich dude being optimistic, but the statistics Gates brings are indeed an argument for a bit of a glass half-full attitude. Not only do the proverbial “we in America” have it good, the world, as a whole, has it better. The children who were starving on the other side of the globe — you know, those children our parents told us about when they were trying to get us to clean our plates — are much more likely to be getting a meal or two. These statistics also take some of the rose tint off of the glasses by which some of us have seen the “good ol’ days” as longed for in that All

in the Family TV sitcom theme

song … “Didn’t need no welfare state/Everybody pulled his weight/Gee our old LaSalle ran great/Those were the days.” Or, longed for in the famous Twilight Zone TV show episode that featured harried executive Gart Williams (played by James Daly), whose dreams kept taking him to the quaint old 19th century town of Willoughby. Yes, well, those days weren’t necessarily so good, and I’d rather not get off at the “next stop … Willoughby.” Being a descendant of American slaves and those who were targets of Jim Crow racism, I was never one to sit back and reminisce for the days of yore anyway (with the exception of wishing that women’s fashions of the 1940s-1960s would return).

Later in his editorial, Gates makes a point that I’ve acknowledged before: The world just seems to be getting worse because the bad stuff is the first thing publicized and is so easy to access. And, he adds, even bad news has its good aspect: It gets you riled up enough to want to be an agent of change.

Right. Because while it’s good to take comfort in the knowledge that we and our earth-mates have it better, it’s also good to work toward the betterment of those of us who are doing worse. Always look on the bright side of emailing: hwilliams@arkansasonline.com