What Pains Me About Young People
Most of the people I know are much older than myself. They are mostly all middle-age or seniors. Listening to them, I learn a lot about life, especially about what mistakes to avoid. The advice ranges from financial to personal to relationships to education to pretty much anything. Of course not all of the advice is good, but a lot of it is. Even if the advice isn’t good, I can still learn something from it.
This is what pains me, though. People younger than 40 (or, more accurately, immature people) tend to make a lot of mistakes, usually idiotic mistakes. They don’t think ahead, let along plan ahead. In fact, they usually mock the very idea of thinking ahead and acting accordingly.
However, sometimes it is worse than it would seem at first glance. Sometimes they’re thinking is skewed. They don’t think straight or apply critical thinking (usually they don’t even try to). They either mock the idea of doing so, or they completely disregard their responsibility of thinking by claiming something stupid like, “heh heh, I’m not a geek.”
The ultimate worst is arrogance. Many of them refuse to heed the advice or warnings of those wiser than themselves. I know that not all parents are wise, but most of them are much wiser than their children who wind up in messes because they didn’t listen to even half of what their parents said. It’s not just their parents, they will mistreat or ignore other authoritative figures in their lives. Sometimes they think that they are all all that glitters, rejecting all sources of wisdom in their lives.
Saying all that, I can’t help but feel frustrated. Why? If a firefighter scrapes 30 motorcyclists’ brains off the street each year because they weren’t wearing helmets, do you think it would bother him to see motorcyclists not wearing helmets? I have spent years of my life helping people because I care. It’s because I care that I want to people not end up in hardship to begin with. It pains me to see so many young people determined to land themselves into great hardship.
Worse, my generation has this warped idea that people owe them help or aid. I see all these people growing up who are completely determined to make the least of their lives as possible. Then, after they reach their goal, they rant at and demonize those who weren’t complete idiots - claiming that they are somehow indebted to helping them like servants to a king. In many cases, they demand the most help from those who tried to give them as much advice as possible to avoid hardship to begin with.
Because they think the responsibility of helping themselves lies on the backs of other people, they are not able to humble themselves and fix what brought them into hardship. It is even worse if they begin to believe that their hardship was someone else’s fault, completely preventing correction. (Sometimes it is someone’s fault to a limited degree, but that is a completely different topic that people love to mix into arguments like the one in an attempt to further deny self-responsibility).
When people think in that way, the causes of their hardship never go away. They want help, but they cannot be helped because the cause of the problem will only cause the problem again. You cannot keep a bucket full of water if it has a huge whole in the bottom. It is a resource sink that will only consume all those who devote themselves to filling it.
That is what pains me about many (if not most) young people. I see them headed for hardship or already in hardship. But, I cannot do anything to help them because they either do not want help or will consume anyone who attempts to help them. It is like watching someone drown when I can’t do anything about it (I would want to save someone who was drowning in case you didn’t know). This applies to all ages of people, but it is much more common in young people.
This pain translates to a great hatred toward pervasive thinking or ideas all around us that seed those self-destructive elements into people. Whenever I see those things fed or promoted, I cringe inside and can’t help but internally scream in anguish for those who would fall prey, those who would slip into a trap for which their is no escape. People who fall prey to such seeds grow to become propagators themselves, like vampires consuming life.
I see those who blissfully walk to their demise in complete ignorance. I test the water with a few brief, kind words and find their water to be bitterfully poisoned. I scream in silence for what I know that they do not. Years pass, and I find whose who were once without humility are now without hope. Ah, but the beauty is in those who saw the light, turned from destruction, and bloomed brightly.
It’s not all loss, because the bucket can be repaired. However, it requires that the bucket be allowed to completely drain and dry. You have to wait until such people have fallen so low that they find humility (preferably not very low). Even then, you can only hope that they will take that humility to heart. If they do, it is a joyous day where you can help them, and they will flourish (in many cases that I’ve seen they don’t even need help because they pick themselves up).
