Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment (MND) leader Garvin Nicholas re­cent­ly post­ed, “Don’t want to sound preachy but hu­man­i­ty is re­al­ly in a dark place… Who/what will turn on the lights is yet to see.”

This sober re­flec­tion res­onates with many to­day who re­flect on ris­ing crime, cli­mate change, eco­nom­ic hard­ship, on­go­ing wars, and geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions.

Some still look to po­lit­i­cal lead­ers to “turn on the lights,” oth­ers hope for di­vine in­ter­ven­tion.

Around 100 BCE, the Hin­du scrip­ture Vish­nu Pu­rana de­scribed the Kali Yu­ga—a dark age marked by moral de­cay, famine, pesti­lence, and war. It fore­told that Lord Vish­nu would de­scend on a white horse, wield­ing a flam­ing sword to res­cue hu­man­i­ty. Sim­i­lar­ly, in Rev­e­la­tion 19, Chris­tians await Je­sus’ re­turn, al­so rid­ing a white horse, bring­ing jus­tice and sal­va­tion.

But a grow­ing num­ber, es­pe­cial­ly among the youth, no longer be­lieve any­one or any­thing will res­cue hu­man­i­ty. They live in the now, find­ing lit­tle mo­ti­va­tion for long-term goals. Con­stant­ly bom­bard­ed by neg­a­tive head­lines and doom­scrolling on so­cial me­dia, many feel help­less and anx­ious. Some even ques­tion the val­ue of ed­u­ca­tion or hope it­self.

Back in the 1970s, I was ex­posed to The Plain Truth mag­a­zine by the World­wide Church of God. Each is­sue paint­ed grim por­traits of so­ci­ety’s de­cline—nu­clear threats, eco­nom­ic col­lapse, and moral de­cay. The Oc­to­ber 1986 is­sue imag­ined a post-nu­clear world blan­ket­ed in tox­ic clouds, block­ing sun­light, bring­ing frozen nights and famine. The March 1980 edi­tion warned of fam­i­ly break­down and ris­ing crime. The April 1986 is­sue ref­er­enced bib­li­cal prophe­cy to sug­gest that the US and Britain had roles in apoc­a­lyp­tic sce­nar­ios. And the April 1980 edi­tion raised con­cerns about en­vi­ron­men­tal col­lapse.

Al­though meant to awak­en spir­i­tu­al readi­ness, these pre­dic­tions of­ten in­stilled fear. But even they pale in com­par­i­son to to­day’s un­re­lent­ing flood of neg­a­tiv­i­ty on so­cial me­dia. Our youth are in­un­dat­ed with bad news—mak­ing them pris­on­ers of their phones. Many need to be eman­ci­pat­ed from dig­i­tal noise so they can sim­ply think for them­selves. Some­times, I show them those old mag­a­zines to help them see that the end has been pre­dict­ed be­fore. I heard it all 50 years ago. It’s about putting down your phone—and pick­ing up your life.

Re­cent­ly, I at­tend­ed a Styx con­cert. Their 1981 song “The Best of Times” struck me anew. It ac­knowl­edges our fears— “The head­lines read/These are the worst of times”—yet flips it with hope: “But I be­lieve it’s the best of times.”

Even dur­ing chaos, love, con­nec­tion and mean­ing can make life rich and beau­ti­ful.

The lyrics re­flect emo­tion­al re­silience and the pow­er of per­son­al re­la­tion­ships.

“When peo­ple lock their doors and hide in­side/Ru­mour has it, it’s the end of par­adise…”

But then comes the hope­ful turn: “As long as we got each oth­er, we can find the best of times.”

It’s a re­minder that uni­ty and love can form a sanc­tu­ary from the mad­ness of the world.

In 1981, peo­ple feared in­fla­tion, nu­clear war and cul­tur­al up­heaval. To­day, sim­i­lar fears per­sist. Yet, the song still res­onates be­cause peo­ple crave re­as­sur­ance—they want to be­lieve that even in hard times, there’s still some­thing beau­ti­ful to live for.

Yes, the world can be dark. But we must live. We must find joy. We must em­brace the com­fort of one an­oth­er, do our part in our com­mu­ni­ties, and in­vest in our­selves. Every gen­er­a­tion has faced mo­ments that felt like the end—World Wars, the Great De­pres­sion, the Cold War. But hu­man­i­ty en­dures. Peo­ple re­build.

To those feel­ing over­whelmed by im­pend­ing doom, I say: Turn off the noise. Find a pas­sion. Vol­un­teer. Help some­one else. If each of us turns on the light in our own lit­tle space, to­geth­er we can il­lu­mi­nate the dark­ness.