Honestly, it’s been so bad for so long, I didn’t even notice. 

When we moved out to rural Texas in 2015, there was basically no cell phone service at our house or on our dirt road. We tried to fix it at first—I even put a booster on the roof—but it didn’t work. I suppose we could have switched providers…but that seemed like a pain.

We had a landline and wifi-calling, though both were unreliable, especially in storms or when one of our neighbors would cut the AT&T line while grading the road. So we got used to it. We accepted that when we were out and about at home, our phones couldn’t make calls or send texts…for over ten years. It was almost predictable, I’d be back somewhere on my property and some incredibly important call would come through…with just enough service for me to answer and not be able to talk.

That’s why it sort of snuck up on me the last couple months that my phone had full reception when I was out checking on the cows. Or when I was walking the dog. Or even out in the garage. 

An inconvenience that had been part of our lives for so long just suddenly went away. 

And it took me some time to notice it.

Which is something life does, by the way, it gets better and we don’t notice. 

Because we’re so focused on what’s going wrong. Because we’re not paying attention. Because the algorithm and the news cycle is biased. 

I thought the same thing as I was passing through the Austin airport this morning. For the last two years or so, security had been a mess because of a major construction project. As I landed at the American gates and walked to the exit, I noticed that finally the new security entrance was almost done. They were testing it right then. 

The construction had been background noise for so long I had stopped perceiving that, slowly, progress was also happening. And that progress, eventually, inevitably, leads to a completion. 

Having kids is like this too. You are so in the thick of it that you can be blind to the passing of time. Every haircut and nail trim means they’re getting a little older. Same too for every shirt they grow out of. There are obvious benchmarks like walking and potty training and first words but a lot of the other moments are more subtle. You don’t notice the moment you stop lugging a stroller everywhere. There is no one moment when an infant becomes a toddler or a toddler a teenager. These transitions don’t announce themselves.

And you’re also so in the thick of it, dealing with so many problems, that you don’t always notice the ways they’re getting better, like as humans. You don’t notice the night that was the last night they woke you up at 3 a.m. You take for granted the day they started getting into the car themselves and buckling their own seatbelt. You don’t see the way they’re becoming more independent, more competent. It’s not obvious how the things you’re teaching are becoming values and habits, but if you’re doing it right, they are. And it’s easy to miss that everyday this person is becoming a better person, that you are succeeding at this really hard thing. 

I guess what I am saying is that it’s important that we stop and see this. How often do we update our world view to account for what has been fixed, for what’s gotten better, for sources of annoyance that have been eliminated? Or are we carrying around zombie frustrations and anxieties and grievances that we can’t seem to shake?  

Marcus Aurelius—who had every reason to see the world as dark and broken—had this remarkable capacity to notice beauty and progress everywhere. As he was dealing with wars and plagues and betrayals and the loss of loved ones, as his health was failing, he was also writing about the ordinary way that “baking bread splits in places and those cracks, while not intended in the baker’s art, catch our eye and serve to stir our appetite,” or the “charm and allure” of nature’s process, the “stalks of ripe grain bending low, the frowning brow of the lion, the foam dripping from the boar’s mouth.” 

This is someone who cultivated what you might call a poet’s eye—the discipline to notice the beauty in the banal, the mundane, the everyday. He was able to see beauty anywhere…which is really important when you live in ugly times. 

There’s a tendency, especially right now, to look at everything and see only what’s broken. And yes—there’s plenty that’s broken. But it’s worth remembering, stuff has always been broken. Ancient Greece had earthquakes and horrible storms and natural disasters. People suffered. People were killed. People stole the money intended to help those people. Ancient Rome had tyrants and bullies. It had pointless cruelty and systemic injustices. 

It’s always been this way. For centuries, people have fought over minuscule differences. Their governments have been dysfunctional. Their traditions seemed like they were falling apart. Stuff was changing. Stuff was stressful. Stuff sucked. 

It’s not only always been like this…but it’s almost always been worse. You can look out at the news and despair about things. Or you can zoom out and see progress. You can focus on the bad people and miss that the bad people today are almost certainly better than the bad people back then. Even the people you disagree with and dislike politically are not selling their enemies into slavery, sending children to work in the mines and doing science experiments on minorities–things that were not only common in Zeno and Marcus Aurelius’s time, but common enough where you live not that long ago! 

For all the things it is easy to lament about the world, it’s disputable that we live in a time of abundance, medicine, knowledge, and opportunity—things our ancestors could not have imagined in their wildest dreams. If you woke up in a bed this morning, brushed your teeth, flushed your toilet, and had a hot shower, you’re living better than the emperors, kings, and queens of the past. Before indoor plumbing and on-demand heated water, Genghis Khan conquered half the known world but never once felt clean and comfortable the way I do when I dress in sweats after a shower. Before toothpaste, Queen Elizabeth I, one of the most powerful women in history, had teeth blackened by decay. Before refrigeration, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, Queen Victoria, Cleopatra, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington—none of them ever opened a fridge and cracked open a cold drink on a hot day.

Almost certainly you are living better than you were not that long ago. Think back to your first apartment. Think back that beater of a car you were once perfectly happy with. Think back to what you used to think was a lot of money, what you used to think was ‘fast’ internet. Think back to things you used to hear people saying growing up, think about what things were like for people less privileged than you back then. 

So yes, see what’s broken. Note what needs to be improved. Yes, work to make it happen. But try to notice all that’s been fixed too. Try to see what’s different in your own life. What used to bother you that doesn’t anymore? What was broken that got fixed? What problem solved itself while you weren’t looking?

The world is and always will be messy. But somewhere in the mess, progress is always being made—quietly, steadily, nearly imperceptibly. 

You just have to slow down and notice it.