The other day a friend and I were chatting about compassion. Why, we wondered, does it seem as though the young adults of today are so much more self-centered? Granted, every generation asks the same question when they reach our age. It's true that people in their twenties and early thirties are often self-involved, and for a good reason. They are in the process of learning who they are. Often they are also starting a family and taking care of young children tends to make one very self-involved. It takes a tremendous amount of effort to start, and raise, a family. There isn't much time to develop friendships until the kids are in their teens and finding their own way. Yet, my generation held protests on college campuses and championed the rights of the minorities. Where are the protesters today? Why are there so few young people out there demanding a better world? It looks, from here anyway, as though they are interested only in the next upgrade of their phone. What happened?
Well, we happened. We the parents of those laisse faire kids with attitudes. We listened to psychologists who fed us a line of crap about feeding the child's self esteem to the detriment of all other character building. Kids, they told us, needed to be told they can do anything and they need to be told that in an environment free from competition. All I can say is I'm so glad I personally didn't fall for that.
Why in God's name would you tell your child he can do anything? Even if it were true there's not enough time in a life to try. By not nurturing the child's true gifts we ended up with a long line of tone deaf singers auditioning for America's Got Talent. Then, when they are told the truth by the judges, they had full blown temper tantrums in front of millions of people! I felt horribly embarrassed for them. Why, I wonder, were they not told by Mom and Dad that their gifts didn't lie in that direction with added encouragement in heading the right direction. Not everyone can sing, nor should they. We all have different talents for a reason.
Why on earth are we treating normal intelligent children like Special Olympic contestants? I was always chosen last in any physical education activity and I survived. The real world does not have time to treat everyone as winners. Life is about learning from our failures and losses. Kids taught competition is wrong have a major meltdown when first faced with a real problem to solve. No one in our generation walked into a crowded school and shot every one in the place. At least, if they did, the media didn't glorify it and turn the whole incident into a circus.
Parents who raised their kids in this manner seem to be perplexed when the young adult moves back home, unable to deal with the real world. Why aren't they simply handed a job? Two years later they're still at home, functioning on Prozac, wine coolers and video games. Then Mom and Dad decide it's time for Tough Love. Tough Love is a whole program designed to get young adults out of the house and functioning on their own. I'm not sure why the kids weren't simply given responsibilities when they were younger and save everyone a lot of time and heartache. But, many people swear by it. I suppose it depends upon how it is used. From my experience those who practice it quote the "teach a man to fish" line, throw a few bucks at the problem and disappear.
Many will discover the Law of Attraction. This philosophy says you get what you think. If you think positive things you'll get them. I completely agree with this part but it gets kinda scary when you get Ayn Rand and her book Atlas Shrugged into the mix. In the end, L of A does nothing more than reinforce those values learned in childhood. It's all about me, why should I give a damn about you? Rand raved against the government wanting to abolish it all together. Until she needed public assistance herself. She still called for the end of government, just did so between picking up her checks. There seems to be a lot of this hypocrisy going on.
What is going to happen when our entire financial system fails? Trump and other billionaires expect another, even bigger, recession before Obama leaves office, leaving a vast majority of the wealthy 50% poorer. But, will anyone do anything to keep themselves safe? It's doubtful. The government is telling us a different story and those who think positively don't read the news. It's such a downer.Personally, I think if we all just agreed to be responsible for one other person besides ourselves, we might actually be able to save this world.
And, perhaps, we aren't meant to. Maybe greed, gluttony, lust, and all the other sins are meant to run their course. They've been responsible for the destruction of other cultures and they will be so again. For a species that is supposedly smarter than any other, we aren't terribly bright.
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