As I write this, I’m another year older but don’t feel
different from before. Being in an Apple
store on my birthday, I had a conversation with a techie—a young man who could
talk shop but struck me with an enormous sense of entitlement and paralyzing
fear of failure. Our exchange made me reminisce about the passing years and about
the difference in young people before and now, and I offer this as my view.
My twenties were a period in which big choices were made—career,
economics, lifestyle and partner. I went
to Europe, finished my education, and felt free by leaving the structured world
of academia. I never saved a dime, but traveled,
paid off my student loans and invested in life insurance. I worked in management at a non-profit, and lived
alone in a one-bedroom apartment in a hipster area of Los Angeles. Although a soul-mate emerged, I had made up
my mind that I did not want to marry. It was a milestone period, one in which I
might be classified as an adult, but inside I felt very young, and in my heart
I was apprehensive to commit to anything. I didn’t want anyone or anything
tying me down, until I figured myself out.
I felt over-whelmed and lost and weighed my options. To know myself better, I delved into psychology
and then an esoteric study and self-knowledge became my saving grace. But by today’s standards I had it easy.
From my vantage point, one’s twenties are becoming more and
more ambiguous. It’s as if I witness a development period that is a slow winding
road into adulthood. I wonder if today’s youth has that part of their brain
that plans, prioritizes and controls impulses fully formed. In my opinion, the
18-29 year old may look like adults but their responses are purely adolescent.
I know it’s foolish to expect a twenty something to be fully formed as an
adult, but I often look into their eyes and see they don’t know whether to be
happy or frustrated. I’m wondering does
the brain actually start working at age 30?
Navigating the twenties is no easy task, and today’s kids
are living with their parents as dependents. Why is this happening? Have they been babied, are they too materialistic
to give up creature comforts or is it truly an economic need? Why are they
failing to grow up?
Living with parents was unheard of with my generation of
baby-boomers, we were self-reliant, with a ferocious independent streak—eager
to spread our wings and fly the coop. But today’s twenty-somethings are bemused
not to be offered the world on a plate. They have been raised in an infant
culture where nothing is unfair, hard or uncomfortable. As simple as it sounds,
life wasn’t meant to be easy otherwise why were we given life? By confronting challenges
we develop imaginative vision, cleanse our souls and emerge with character—personalities
that are made stronger, braver, refined with integrity and wise.
A brain is quite malleable in the twenties. Will it come to a halt when it confronts a
challenging situation? It thrives on challenges, and whether it can connect the
dots in its life it will forge ahead. It will test alternative ways of living,
of being and figure out where it needs to be, what it needs to do to get things
done. That struggle is crucial for survival and growth. And whatever choices it
makes, may need tweaking—in the immediate or down the road, and that
sensibility is what directs the person from adolescence into adulthood, without
anyone’s help or interference.
Comments are invited.
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