The Lucky Generation

There are times in our lives that test us, that force us to reflect. My grandfather died a week ago, and we buried him last Thursday. I am not fully prepared to write about it, as I don't believe I have fully processed it. However, I am meditating a lot on the idea of family and the other ways in which we are collective. I think about yoga classes and how they are an act in trust. We wear tight (or sometimes very loose) clothing, stretch, shake, sweat, and (admit it) fart in a room full of strangers. Ultimately, we lie down with our eyes closed and meditate on our backs for any number of minutes. Some of us have even fallen asleep in these classes. I can't enter a yoga class without feeling profoundly lucky to live in America, in this time. I am safe the vast majority of the time. We are so privileged.

The way we gauge safety is often with murder rates. They are more reliable than more politically charged statistics like domestic assault or rape rates. According to the FBI, our current murder rate (as of 2012) is 4.7 out of 100,000 people. That's a .000047% chance of being murdered. That's half what it was when most of us twentysomebodies were being born (10.2 in 1980, the height). This begs the question, how much of our fear is irrational and damaging?

It's often easy to focus on the things working against us, but I challenge you to trust society, your co-workers, your friends, your lovers, yourself a little more.