Here's a great short post on why people are slow to appreciate how awesome it is to be living in the 21st century, by Sir Matt Ridley, author of the cheering book, The Rational Optimist, which is a good companion to Steven Pinker's famous Better Angels of Our Nature in terms of pointing out things are actually mostly getting better for most humans in most places (with some obvious and troubling gaps, of course).
Our mostly general good fortune of living in the 21st century is also noted in the recent time-travel show Timeless, when the African-American programmer being asked to time travel into the past notes, "I am black. There is literally no place in American history that'll be awesome for me."