The narrative that you expect to live better than your parents (controlling for the benefits of technological progress like better medicines or cars), is histor

The narrative that you expect to live better than your parents (controlling for the benefits of technological progress like better medicines or cars), is historically aberrant, especially in the USA given the relative state of the US and world economy in say, 1950 (when everyone else was either woefully underdeveloped or recently bombed out of existence). I think that is the problem... As the US economy shrinks as a percentage of the world economy, you would expect an average life experience in the USA to slowwwly move closer to an average life experience around the world. The latter is moving "up", sure, but there's still a huge gap to move down into. But, they still teach kids in the USA to expect great life for average effort (or frankly as far as I can tell lately, regardless of effort). I don't think any other country in the world has this mindset; I like what appears to me to be the mindset in some Asian countries (I could be wrong but it seems to me like you are expected to try hard to do better but not in any way led to expect you will) is much healthier.