I guess nearly all of us believed in Armageddon, and we believed that it would occur in our lifetime. We didn't have to worry about planning a career, or saving for our retirement- the new system would be here by then. Somehow we had been chosen to be THE generation that would live forever. Looking back now, it all seems ridiculous; how many generations of Witnesses have believed that? They have all passed away. Because we only have one life, we believe we are special and thousands of years of man's rule will end when we want it to.
I have an excuse; there was some urgency in the last century: The king of the north & the king of the south were pushing, 6000 years of man's existence ended in 1975 (If you can believe the calculations), and 1986 was the international year of peace. All signs that the end was near...Now the 21st century seems to stretch on to infinity and the urgency has completely gone. Why did we think we were special?