Every generation seems to develop it’s own right of passage. Lucky are the ones who are unaffected by the need to somehow fit in by proving that they really don’t. Somehow the need to stand out in the crowd makes people do some really strange things.
I have two teenage boys, and I wish I could call them young men. They are part of a mindset that the bustling American credit boom inspired. They have a feeling of entitlement, that the world that is being handed to them is somehow less than they deserve. Although they are faced with/some great challenges, they inherit the most technologically advanced civilization the Earth has known. Rather than being ready to carry their torch onward they want to point fingers, and rebel.
I was young once with my own issues, but what separated my generation from this one was work. Finding a job of any type was a privilege, but to the youth of America it is a burden. How could this happen? It happened silently over the last four decades during the moral decline of our country. Our youths deserve better; they are only partly to blame if at all for their predicament for it is our leadership throughout society that has lost its salt.
We in America stand on the precipice of the greatest wealth and knowledge transfer the world has seen. The Eastern cultures are advancing rapidly on the world stage in both economics, technology, and they already own manufacturing due to an unwavering work ethic. Good work is the highest service one can contribute to society, and the youths of today somehow believe it to be a waste of time because it cuts into their media addiction. It is time for Americans to quit worrying about their lifestyles and begin to worry about their responsibilities as parents, citizens of the world, and being producers not just takers. This is the time for the right of passage of all people to get their act together before it is too late, time to grow up.