I remember being told as a child that I could be anything I wanted to be.
I’d like to call bullshit on that philosophy.
I don’t know what the grown-ups of the world thought their positive mantras would actually teach us. I’m sure they thought our generation would be miraculously inspired and then would out-perform any previous generation. But in my experience, none of the self-esteem-inflating claims of every child’s infinite potential for success and perfect happiness seem to have worked.
Instead of teaching us to dream big, it seems to have taught us that it’s okay not to have aspirations — we’ll be okay, because if we can be anything, we certainly can’t end up being nothing, so why bother trying that hard? We aim to be “rich,” “happy,” and “successful,” but that’s as specific as the long term goals ever get.
I’ve seen friends drop out of college and move back home. I’ve seen schoolwork put off or left undone. I’ve seen people with amazing potential and insight working jobs they should have graduated from back in high school. I’ve seen all kinds of critical deadlines missed. I’ve seen the most embarrassing of simple mistakes made in our daily tasks. And I’ve seen it all accepted with the same apathy that led to these events in the first place.
I’ve got the apathy, too. I think the only thing that keeps me meeting my parents’/teachers’/bosses’ expectations is the fear of the vague crises that would result from not meeting those expectations.
What’s wrong with us all? I think we all know we’re fuckups on some level or another. We’re not homeless or bankrupt or in jail, but we’re not the shining stars that our grade school teachers assured us that we would be.
I spent my childhood in schools that were supposed to allow me to excel. But every class, every grade was a precursor to the next. Doing well in fourth and fifth grade would help me get into the junior high program that “I” wanted to be in. Doing well in seventh and eighth would get me into the high school program that so naturally followed. Doing well in high school would get me into a good college. Well, it got me into a public university with a full scholarship. Close enough. And now doing well in college will get me into a grad school? And when I do get into the supposed “real world,” it’s only to keep pursuing raises and promotions, until I’m eventually counting the days until my delayed retirement?
The problem is that none of this seems to be in pursuit of an ultimate goal. The goals are small, each one aimed at taking me to the one that immediately follows it. There’s no real plan, just endless hurdles, each one disappointingly identical to the one I’d just passed — the one that was supposed to take me forward to something better, something more interesting, something else.
I know I’m not alone in this exhaustion over a path that doesn’t seem to be going in any precise direction because it keeps coming up in conversation, but the most optimistic responses seem to think that taking a year off might somehow magically cure everything.
Is this a generational apathy? Is this something everyone goes through as they transition slowly from high school to their eventual careers? Is this the fatigue of being subjected to elitist educators for the past decade?
I hope for all our sakes that it’s just a phase.
Posted: 5:34 pm ·
Category: Big Things, Rants ·
Comments: 8
