No one wakes up one morning and decides to get soft.
It happens slowly.
One convenience at a time.
One shortcut at a time.
One “I’ll deal with it later” at a time.
The generation that lived through the Great Depression didn’t have the luxury of drifting. They didn’t have ten backup options. They had one stove, one coat, one chance at a job that week.
Scarcity sharpened them.
We live in something different.
We live in abundance layered over anxiety. Everything is available. Everything is instant. Food. Opinions. Entertainment. Credit. Distraction. The world arrives before we even ask for it.
And here is the quiet trade:
When life gets easier, character gets less exercise.
That’s not an insult. It’s mechanics.
Muscle unused weakens.
Judgment untested dulls.
Patience unrequired fades.
We have built systems designed to remove friction. Faster shipping. Faster answers. Faster dopamine. Even disagreement is faster now — you can argue with a stranger in seconds.
But friction was never just inconvenience.
Friction trained restraint.
When you had to wait for something, you valued it.
When you had to save for something, you protected it.
When you had to fix something yourself, you respected it.
Now we replace instead of repair.
Scroll instead of reflect.
React instead of consider.
It’s not that people today lack strength. It’s that strength is not being exercised.
Look at how we handle discomfort now.
A delayed package feels like injustice.
A slow Wi-Fi connection feels like sabotage.
A difference of opinion feels like attack.
Compare that to standing in a bread line in 1932 and saying nothing because there were children behind you.
Different calibrations.
And here is the danger:
When comfort becomes default, hardship feels catastrophic — even when it isn’t.
That’s why small stressors feel enormous in modern life. We are not accustomed to sustained tension.
The Depression generation expected difficulty. We expect smoothness.
That expectation gap creates fragility.
Here’s the hopeful part.
Strength is not inherited once and lost forever.
It is recoverable.
The same discipline that carried families through the 1930s is still available. It just needs activation.
It looks like:
Saving when you could spend.
Fixing when you could replace.
Listening when you could react.
Waiting when you could rush.
None of those trend.
All of them build stability.
We talk about resilience as if it is rare.
It is not rare.
It is just unfashionable.
Endurance does not sparkle. It does not demand applause. It does not post selfies.
It quietly reinforces the foundation.
The real danger isn’t that modern people are incapable of grit.
The danger is that they don’t believe they’ll ever need it.
History doesn’t promise smoothness.
It promises cycles.
Every generation believes its comfort is permanent. None have been correct so far.
So the question isn’t:
“Are we weaker than they were?”
The question is:
“What are we training for?”
If all we train for is speed, convenience, and reaction, then when pressure comes, we will feel overwhelmed.
If we train for steadiness, restraint, and responsibility — even in calm seasons — we won’t panic when things tighten.
The people in the 1930s did not know they were building legend-level endurance. They were just surviving Tuesday.
That’s the part we forget.
Strength is built in ordinary days.
Not in crisis headlines.
If you want to compete with the 1930s spirit, you don’t romanticize bread lines.
You practice discipline when you don’t have to.
Turn something off before you’re forced to.
Save something before you’re scared to.
Sit with something before you react to it.
That’s how strength returns.
Not by shouting about grit.
By rehearsing it quietly.
And the good news is this:
It’s still in us.
It just needs resistance to wake it up.
micvicfaust@intelligent-people.org
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