To most of us life is about -
live, laugh, love.
For others it appears to be about -
aim, fire, reload.

Foxy,
For the lucky ignorant yes, for normal functioning, revenue producing folk it's try not to cry & secure a feed & a roof over their heads & try to stay out of the crosshair of bureaucracy !
Count yourself extremely fortunate to be able to go through life as you do without having to depend on merit !

Indyvidual,

You've got 3 choices in life:

Give up

Give in

Or give it all you've got!

Rome's decline I suspect was rather multi faceted.
One factor was the climate cycle with colder weather and lower crop
yields. Another factor was the Barbary Pirates as they were later called.
Their raiding of Roman trading ships and slave capturing made the
international trade around the Mediterranean unprofitable as Rome was
forced to use land routes for much of its trade.

Baz

One of the major things that brought down the Roman Empire was that they granted citizenship to too many different sorts of people.

Sound familiar?

When historians talk about the fall of an empire
they talk about a long process, rather than a single
cause.

Empires are large and complex. Historians refer to internal
corruption, division, outside invasion, rebellion,, plague,
economic issues, and social and cultural issues.