Reframing is a psychological term meaning that the reaction to any situation is found in the frame in which it is viewed. Reframing life’s rewards will be a requirement of satisfaction for those who mature in our changed economy. The future isn’t what it was.

It’s likely you’ve heard people in their 50s and 60s lamenting their children and grandchildren’s prospects for success. Their concern is well founded. For a multiplicity of reasons, the next generations’ material future isn’t as rosy as ours was. But, fortunately, material attainment constitutes a fraction of well-being and satisfaction.

First, consider the context of elders’ pessimism. From the birth of Christ until about 1776 there were remarkably small improvements in the average person’s material well-being. Life wasn’t everywhere brutal—but it was short and uncertain. Even in America circa 1900, life expectancy was just over 42 years.

Suddenly, around 1800 there was a radical acceleration of wealth creation. Throughout the Western world economic prosperity took off averaging about two percent a year, doubling each 35 years. This lasted until the chaos of WWI, the Great Depression, and WWII.

America was the last major intact nation after WWII. As a result, we experienced an explosion of wealth. By historical measures, most Americans became immensely wealthy. Technology improved, sales soared, and remarkable economic growth generated good jobs.

It’s not surprising that those who graduated from college from the 1960s through the 80s assumed this favorable employment situation should be the norm. Alas, despite recent remarkable technological improvements, it’s not.

We lived in an aberrant period, one unlikely to be enjoyed by our children and grandchildren. Here are two reasons why continued material growth is unlikely. First, dramatic improvements in communication and transportation imply that American workers compete worldwide. Labor is one cost factor that producers and consumers seek to reduce. As a result, much American manufacturing of material stuff, the furniture of the world, is relocated to less expensive sites.

This necessarily means that the employment world of our children and grandchildren has been hollowed out. Opportunities, especially for those lacking abstract skills, are substantially reduced.

For example, we recently enjoyed dinner with a dentist from Orlando, Florida. I mentioned needing some $4,500 in crown work. He noted this was not an unusual fee. In his practice he could send crown moldings to China by Fed Ex and receive excellent finished products back faster than from the lab in Orlando—at one third the cost. (He doesn’t use the Chinese lab for he can’t be sure their crowns don’t contain toxic elements.)

The point is that aside from goods and services that must be done on site, such as plumbing repairs, few are insulated from international competition. Much routine corporate law work is shipped out to India and this applies to a great many services once done exclusively by Americans. Reading MRIs abroad is now technically easy.

The second major threat comes from political actions and bureaucracies that increase economic entropy, the tendency of economic systems to degenerate. Mancur Olson’s 1982 book, The Rise and Decline of Nations, still explains it best. He argued that stable democracies develop “institutional sclerosis.” Lobbies generate inefficient regulations and redistributions that thwart productivity. This negative force is increasingly pervasive and destructive.

What’s our descendents’ hope for success if competition and economic entropy are both rising? Their fate need not lead to less satisfying and wholesome lives. They could actually be improved; it depends on framing. A favorable outcome may flow from reframing the metric of success.

Essentially, beyond a level of wealth most Americans long since surpassed, additional increases bring little happiness. Research by psychologist Edward Diener, among many others, has shown that once your basic needs are met, additional income does little to raise your satisfaction with life and happiness. Health, friends, family, and a sense of contributing add far more. Reframing success may be the key to life’s satisfaction.