Imagine if a third of your family died of the plague as religious fanatics preached "The end is nigh!" and threatened that the few pleasures you could squeeze out of life would lead to your eternal damnation. As wars raged around you, surrounded by death, disease, and the lowest grimy depths of poverty, it would be understandable to think the world was in the midst of an apocalyptic collapse.

There have been a lot of periods throughout history when people thought they were living during the end times, and for some, this was an understandable attitude. But what about the person who tweets that the world is going to hell while safely sipping a latte on a city avenue? In many ways, things have never been better, yet there is still so much pessimism about where the world is heading.

It's not all the fault of the negative people. There are those who dedicate their careers to making sure the population stays angry, stressed and scared–we call them the media. I admit to being a part of the problem at times out of my failure to balance alerting readers to real dangers and giving breath to needless anxiety.

Of course, there are some things that need to be addressed in order to make sure human lives continue to improve. But already progress is overwhelming. All you need to do is look around to realize that we have a historically unrivaled ability to shape our lives to match our dreams.

As penance for any past negativity about the future on my part, here are 10 reasons to be excited and hopeful for the future. 1o ways that we are not on the edge of a cliff, but at the foot of a glorious mountain of prosperity.

1. The Democratization of Exponential Technology.

Technology is allowing anyone to be economically independent, and its rapid growth is paving the way for unprecedented access to freedom and wealth.

Democratizing technology means the masses now have access to what only the rich and powerful once controlled.