Most of us do not realize it, but our lives are fairly undemanding. Many of our lives are like a walk in the park compared to the lives of those who came before us, the people who carved what used to be a wild frontier into a prosperous country—the first settlers.

Their journeys started off by finding suitable places to live and building their homes. Their homes were made of logs cut from the trees surrounding them, which was done with axes and brute strength, not chainsaws. The lucky ones might have had a crosscut saw as well, but this was an uncommon luxury. If you have ever had the pleasure of using a crosscut saw all day, you understand that it is hard work.

There is no way we can comprehend how much energy it takes to build a house single-handedly out of materials hacked from the wilderness. Today, contractors have large crews to help them build houses and gather their materials by driving to the closest hardware store.

While expending all of this energy building a place the homesteaders could call home, the settlers also had to feed themselves. I know from personal experience that when you are building a cabin with hand tools, you eat a lot. I’m talking two steaks per night. Because of the scarce resources and lack of food, the settlers did not eat enough, but this did not slow them down. They might not have eaten for two or three days, but they did not complain about it. They kept going because they had no choice and because that was what it took to survive.

Anyone who spends time in the backcountry knows obtaining calories is the bulk of your day. For these people, it was their reality. They were either hunting, gathering or planting things to eat in the little free time they had.

We know nothing of this lifestyle now. We put in very little work to get our food. Most of us obtain our food by going to the grocery store and picking up a packaged, pre-prepared meal.

Living in this urbanized world—as I like to call the concrete jungle—has caused us to become disconnected from the natural world and our natural roots. We all had ancestors who lived in the wilderness at some point in their lives.

When our ancestors were still living on homesteads and surviving off of the land, humans were a strong and powerful species. Moving from the woods to a more urbanized environment has made us lazy.

Immersing ourselves in the woods can help fix this. I am not saying we should drop everything and go back to living off of the land, but I do believe that everyone should have at least one experience in the wilderness to help us appreciate what we have.

So the next time you feel like your life is hard, think back to the times of the settlers and what their lives were like. Maybe then you will reconsider your complaints.