Expectation space pattern

I am taking an online mindfulness course via Coursera at the University of Leiden. One of the  questions that came up was whether we are in a period of greater stress historically than before. One person pointed that with famine, disease, life expectancy, etc. life was more stressful before. My thought was that that is not true. What has happened is that with

• the complexity of our civilizations, 
• all the stories / narratives  / media we are exposed to 

we have developed a very large expectation space. Our expectations of what our lives could be, should be, ought to be, ... And the gap between the actuality of our lives and experiences and our expectation space is  what leads to stress. So, in this model, stress is much more in this age than it has ever been before.

With this pattern, there is also the issue whether a person senses

• they can meet these expectations
• the expectations are impossible to achieve for them
• if only ....  , then .... Which leads to various fantasies which may collide with actuality and cause stress
• ...

One can contrast expectation space with opportunity space. Since we live in a infinite universe, opportunity space is infinite. However, we may not have the strategies, capabilities to  avail ourselves of these opportunities.