John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Gratitude for Our Era

It’s important not only to be grateful to be born the way we are but also to be grateful we were born when we were.

If I had been born early in human civilization —for example, during the Hunter-Gatherer era—I would have struggled to fit in.

When asked which group I was in, hunter or gatherer, I would have been faced with the harsh reality that I wasn’t good at either. And I would have aske…d if there was a third option available. Maybe for consultants?

But the Hunter-Gatherer-Consultant era just doesn’t have an authentic ring to it.

I guess I should be grateful to have been born when I was. When there are more than just those two job options. It would have been painful for me each day to have been the last one in my group picked for either the hunter or gatherer team. Like playing in a 4-on-4 pick-up basketball and you are the 8th guy and only one under six feet tall who didn’t play basketball in high school or college. That awful exasperated final pick (forced on the team stuck with you)….and hearing the captain mutter “Oh, man. Not him” as he realized after the seventh player was selected that only left you.

I would have had to deal with that kind of humiliation daily during the Hunter-Gatherer era. And this was the period in human civilization after fire had been discovered but before the discovery of affective mood disorder medications, talk therapy, or support groups. And satire. And obviously before outsourcing.

Life really would have lousy for me and probably included a lot of passive-aggressiveness toward my group coupled with a lot of difficult to explain acting out. And no one knowing at that time about intervention processes– and just writing off my bad behavior and attitude to not being good at hunting and gathering.

And no Facebook or other social media outlets to vent about my sense of alienation and being misunderstood.

What a bizarre culture to try to survive in.

I may come up short in many areas of my life, but when it comes to the period in human civilization (era-wise) for me to be born, I nailed it.