generation why

I had a very nice dinner at Natasha's Cafe last night - a Midnight Chicken Curry wrap with mashed potatoes and a greek salad. Wow, good stuff. I also had some great conversation with my friend Carla.

Carla and I were discussing at length a topic that inevitably seems to roll around at some point whenever we get together (and this usually is once every 4 or 5 months). Namely, what is going on with my generation? This applies specifically to the earlier Generation Y but I think could also affect some later Generation X-ers. She has witnessed a type of crisis among us: we don't pursue set goals, we don't even make goals, and instead of plugging into a job or career, we float and wander and oftentimes don't even support ourselves on our own. Why are there so many young people searching for meaning? Why are so many of our generation hanging around bars out of this lack of meaning? Why do we often act out of desperation or resignation rather than purpose and resolution? Specifically, my friend wanted to know what her generation did to us, their kids, in making us this way.

Some interesting observations: we have been raised in an American culture that saw the longest stretch of prosperity and peace in its entire history. We also have been raised in a culture that focused on increasing our self-esteem. We have been enticed with the magnitude of opportunity, but the choices we faced may have been no different from those of our parents. We have been individualistic. College was expected. Now, graduate school is nearly requisite for a good job. Living in a time and culture of plenty, we are naturally spoiled.

Do we expect the world to hand us our paycheck on a silver platter? Do we expect easy living? Do we have an ingrown pretentiousness and cynicism that disdains lower paying jobs, corporate loyalty, and doing what appears to be "settling" for something that appears less than the best? In other words, are we living in an unreality? Are we deluding ourselves that we can attain our idealistic notions of finding gainful AND interesting employment, that is stimulating, rewarding, refreshing, and perhaps even profitable... or do we need to just suck it up and face reality that you better just dig in your heels and work your way up as best you can somewhere no matter what the content of your job is as the only way to make progress or a decent living in this society?

I have been pressured and/or encouraged to pursue a profitable profession. Orthodontics was what my family always encouraged me to go after, as a way to make not just a good living, but a luxurious living... When I contested that I didn't want to be an orthodontist, or perhaps even didn’t want wealth, my attitude was incomprehensible to my parents. Perhaps they thought I was being silly. Perhaps enjoyable work was too much to ask; if you had respectful work, that was enough, or a nice paycheck? Even better. But they were working through the 80s, marked by the yuppies, the young upwardly mobile. These young urban professionals had this mentality of climbing the corporate ladder. I think we’ve moved away from this demographic in the current generation of the work force.

I believe it has something to do with a crisis of identity. Though traditionally, this crisis of identity would usually have taken place around ages 16-18, now it seems to be prolonged a decade later. For example, it is more common for young people to wait longer to get married and put off having kids until their 30s. On the one hand, this is not my experience with my immediate sphere of friendships. I see people tying the knot as soon as they finish college, and starting to have children before they are even 25. But I also realize that my closest sphere of friends are not representative of my generation as a whole, and I would agree that my experience is an anomaly rather than the norm. Even in my church, all of the young, first time mothers (or mothers-to-be) I see are all above 25. Most are in the 27-30 range. I have numerous single friends as well who are in their upper twenties and early 30s. Having children when you’re 40 is not seen as unusual through the eyes of my generation and the later Gen X-ers. Many don’t feel a rush to get married or start families; they see that as giving up what would be an otherwise vibrant decade of their 20s.

I think there is intense pressure to find your identity, to fulfill your destiny (to put it in a secular turn of phrase), and, honestly, “to be all that you can be.” Perhaps corporate loyalty is seen as falling short of this mark, or as an empty, dim prospect… certainly I’ve had my bouts with corporate America and a lack of fulfillment swimming in the waters of my vocational confusion… but is that reality? Furthermore, why all the vocational confusion and reluctance?

I vacillate between saying that this generation’s identity is rooted in fierce independence or parasitic dependence… Perhaps we want the image of independence, but often this is a farce... We all too often depend on parents, community, society to help us along. We think a few letters after our name will guarantee a more fulfilling future that will cater to our needs, and give us a life of leisure. We aren’t thinking of retirement. We’re thinking of living a life of leisure here and now… we’re wondering why the hell would we sell out to corporate America, business, or commercialism? Why give up our (perceived) freedom?

If these are honest representations of questions facing myself and others in my generation, they risk sounding arrogant, idealistic, and disdainful on the ears of those who are sloughing away for their retirement, committing themselves to work par excellence, from the mundane to the challenging, like my friend Carla. We may have lost the perspective that freedom, peace, prosperity are all tenuous realities that could be snapped at any moment. We think they are assured, and deserved, for our intelligence, our degrees, our culture, our Americanism. That, I think, is dead pan wrong. Frankly, even if we are intelligent, it has only made us shrewd and lazy lacking any real work ethic… seeking a way to avoid the toil, avoid the work, for carefree whimsy and adventure. (I can distinctly remember a similar attitude among peers in high school, who boasted they could not only not study, but also stay high on drugs, and yet still pull off a better grade than someone like myself, who study as I might, never pulled off an "A" in AP Calculus. My question remains: why is that something to boast about?)

So where does the fault lie, for this attitude, this crisis? Ourselves? Our parents? Our culture? Our nationality? Our society? Our fallen nature? I’m more tempted to say choice G: all of the above, but I honestly don’t know.

I think this, our cynical view of work and vocation, has been shaped by a serious disconnection.
We are disconnected from the work of our hands.
We are disconnected from our Creator and hearing His call.

Perhaps I’ll explore these in a later post. For now I think I’ve rambled enough.