We Americans are always worried about our place in the world. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States has held its position as the only world superpower, the most powerful nation on the planet, but we’re always fearing that we’ll be usurped. We commonly refer to China as the next superpower and fret that other nations will leave us in the dustbin of history.

But is this really something to worry about? We arguably still have a long reign ahead of us as the masters of the globe.

China. We regard the country as the successor of the old U.S.S.R. A massive empire able to take us on in any sphere and win. In military, diplomacy, economics, and even sports, newspapers claim that China has already surpassed us. China now has the second largest GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and the some of the largest companies in the world are Chinese run.

Yet while the Chinese look good on the outside, their record doesn’t look so great on the inside. 82 million Chinese citizens live on less than a dollar a day, and basic necessities such as running water can be difficult to find in the rural interior. The same goes for India, another country many claim will surpass us. According to the U.N. a third of the world’s poorest residents live in India.

China also isn’t as successful when it comes to geopolitics. Allies of the U.S. include Canada, Japan, and Western European nations, along with other strong economies and international powers. China instead chooses to conspire with Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and Sudan, impoverished dictatorships with no sway around the world. China and potential superpower Russia have been criticized for both their totalitarian regimes and military aggression in the South China Sea and Crimea respectively.

Countries and even groups continue to vie for the title of world’s most powerful nation, yet there is always something holding them back. While the European Union has the largest economy in the world due to its combined members, the current refugee crisis shows that it is anything but united. Brazil was considered the superpower of South America until a recent crisis surrounding the state oil company crashed the economy. The incident is being called the Brazilian Watergate.

The constant fretting brings to mind the panic in the 1980s, where Americans worried Japan would eclipse us. A Japanese company even bought Rockefeller Plaza and were expected to rule the world until a market crashed set the economy back in the early 1990s.

So kick back and relax. We have plenty of time on our hands, and the 15 minutes of fame we have on the world stage looks to be extending for a long, long, time.