How Studying Economic History Made Me Happier

Show me anything, and I will immediately gravitate to its flaws and imperfections. I have a flair for the negative. I worry about worst-case scenarios. I fret about injustice. As far as I know, I always have, but I have particularly vivid memories of being emotionally devastated when I learned about slavery in third grade.

Over the years, it has gotten easier to turn my frown upside down as I have studied more economic history, which was one of my fields of specialization in graduate school, and I've taught it a few times at Rhodes College and Samford University. I've also coauthored a book about it. How does this One Weird Trick work?

Studying economic history has made me happier: I reframe what I see and compare it to what millennia of history show I should reasonably expect rather than the very best I can imagine. It doesn't make tragedies less tragic, but it reminds me that tragedy, bloodshed, and barbarism are much smaller parts of the day-to-day lives of a much larger population.

Life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short for our ancestors. They lived in a past that was a nice place to visit but where you certainly wouldn't want to live. Is everything perfect? Of course it's not, but we've made progress. It's hard to go to any Walmart or grocery store and conclude that life has gotten steadily worse. It's progress worth celebrating, and acknowledging it more frequently will change your outlook for the better.