What "simpler time?"

It seems everybody always wants to go back to "the good ol' days." Even people my age, who are too young to even HAVE good ol' days, occasionally express their desire to go back to a simpler time, to an age of innocence.

Sadly, these good ol' days do not exist.

Does this surprise you? Do you remember your parents' tales of when everybody would leave their doors unlocked and children would roam around unsupervised for hours, because everyone trusted one another?

They probably didn't tell you that the murder rate in 1963 was almost the same as it is today, and by 1971 it had nearly doubled.

So it seems your parents' childhood was not filled with idyllic good will, but rather with blissful ignorance. Or perhaps they just choose to ignore the bad parts.

Of course, perhaps for you the good ol' days are even further back. Back to the 1930s, for example, when one-third of the population was out of work. Or perhaps you have a fantasy of living life in America's rural pastimes, growing up in your little house on the prairie without a care in the world. At the very least, your cares wouldn't last very long — the average expected lifespan for a newborn in 1850 was about 38 years.

And God help you if you were a woman, or worse, not white. Nobody bothered with silly little things like equal rights back in those days.

The past holds many interesting stories and forgotten pieces of culture. There's nothing wrong with nostalgia, but it's easy to view history through rose-colored glasses. Even within our own life, we remember years gone by being easier, or somehow better.

Many people forget the rough spots, and instead only remember the happy memories. That's fine, as long as it's tempered with a dose of realism.

I'm always taken aback when my friends express a desire to live in another age, or a so-called "simpler time."  You're reading this in a college newspaper, so odds are that you, like me, have quite a bit of life ahead of you. And it's a great time to live! Crime is down, life spans are up, and advances in education, technology and civil rights give us opportunities that have never existed in the past. Who knows? Maybe 20 years from now we'll look back at 2011 and remember it as some of mankind's greatest days. We'll be wrong, of course.

The years will somehow smooth over the many flaws that exist within our society. Just remember, you've got problems now, but things wouldn't have been much better at any other point in history. Might as well live like it's the good ol' days.

Jacob Tierney can be reached by email at tierney.record@live.com.