I must say, am happy to be born in the era of civilization. Sometimes I try to imagine a world without the things we have now and the thought always scares me. However, I will always be grateful for the battle our forefathers fought. Without them, there is no us. Am from Nigeria, the Yoruba tribe to be precise and I will be writing this challenge with respect to the forefathers of my country
Who has it better them or us
Firstly, I must say my forefathers do not have the advantage of choosing between different occupations. The major occupation then was farming, trading, weaving, hunting, palm wine tapper and others. If you couldn't farm then you do any of the other occupations. During their era, farming was in the traditional way, with the use of holes and cutlass, to till the large farmland. To make up for the labour needed they have large numbers of children, so many of them have more than one wife and as many children as they could. Everything about farming was done manually and on a low scale. Traders take their goods to other villages by walking; weavers of baskets and other things, do the production manually, which am sure would take time. Hunters might have hard it a little less hard since they might be lucky to get animals in the bush but even they sometimes stay in the forest for days before catching prey. Then there is the lack of medical facilities, every illness is treated locally without adequate knowledge of the disease. Any communication to another town is done by messengers who trek to do the bidding. There was no electricity and an oil lamp was used at the night
Answering this question, I believe we have it better. There is an advantage to choosing between myriads of occupations. Farming is now on a mechanized level and high scale. Clearing land that takes days and months to do is now easily done in hours with tractors. other Machinery that makes farming easy is now available. Trading is now done through the internet, goods can be sent to other countries and also received from other countries. Every occupation is now easy, and very little requires manual labour. The advent of the telephone has made communication easy, messages and information is passed in seconds. We now have better medical services, there is sufficient knowledge about the different types of diseases. And also the presence of social amenities like clean water and electricity. Electricity is one of the greatest advantages that technology brought us. Then there is education, we know more about the world through education something our forefathers lack. All these things made life easier for us compared to our forefathers
are we in happier times
While we have an easy life, our forefather's life was happier. There was less crime rate, and people trust each other and live in harmony, the crime rate has escalated in our era, and people no longer trust or care about each other. The rate of suicide is high due to so many things like debt, loss of jobs and other things. People are under unnecessary pressure and are more worried about life. We are always rushing as though we are being pursued, therefore, I feel that our forefather's time was peaceful and happier than ours is now