The "good ole days" don't exist.

On noble savages.

In the 1750s, philosopher Jean-Jacques Rosseau wrote about the “noble savage.”

For Rosseau, “savage” had a different connotation than how we think about it.

He was referring to humans in their natural state — before civilization and society — uncorrupted by politics, economic systems, and Emily in Paris.

Rosseau’s argument:

Humans, at our base state, are peaceful, harmonious, and morally pure. We are free from greed, from envy, from inequality.

In essence, before … all of this … things we better. And we were better.

Good idea?

We’re talking about it 275 years later, so yes.

Dangerous idea?

Yep.

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The concept of the “Golden Age” dates back to well before Rosseau. In Greek mythology, Kronos ruled the first age of humanity. People lived in peace and prosperity. Things were generally good, even though Kronos had a propensity to eat his children.

The idea that “things used to be better” is one of the world’s most persistent storytelling tropes.

In Christianity, the Garden of Eden was a utopia. The Pride Lands flourished under Mufasa, things were better in London before Big Brother, and Middle Earth was sunshine and rainbows before a large flaming eye started hanging out everywhere.

And this story device is so persistent — and so ingrained in our collective subconscious — that it plays out in reality. We just saw a president get elected twice campaigning on a promise to “Make America Great Again.”

You’re conditioned to think the world used to be better than it was.

That’s not your fault.

But it is your is job to become aware of it.

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It’s good to be aware of, because being overly nostalgic for a better past limits your ability to recognize your current progress.

If you’re always fixated on the myth of the “Golden Age,” you’re subconsciously telling yourself that your future is destined to fall short of your past.

That’s not to say things don’t ebb and flow. Good periods exist — and terrible things can happen to create objectively worse times.

But over the course of your life, you’ve been conditioned to believe that A) there was a Golden Age and B) that it’s in your best interest to return to that Golden Age.

Maybe life really was better for you in the past. Who am I to say?

But I do know this:

I’ve witnessed today become yesterday more than 10,000 times in my life, and not once has yesterday shown back up as tomorrow.

Stop wishing for the Golden Age.

Start creating it.