You barely have to be in your late teens or early twenties before society turns you to the table of its expectations. The usual generational drift in societal values is something apparent in ours. And to budding adults, these expectations have their tabs on our saneness.
Social media has contorted how a successful and fulfilled life should appear. The idea of filters seems to be a sculpt-your-life-on-a-whim type of feature. With a population of young people mistaking tawdry lifestyles with fulfilment, society now reeks of so much chaos. Our dreams and aspirations now are in the confines of the make-believes of the media space.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to down-talk people’s achievements. Also, I am not condemning young folks hitting it hard with their skills, making the dough. But instead, my concerns are about wannabes who have made a mess of the success narrative — those who are all about the most despicable ways to keep up with their public looks.
Today’s experience with young adults is not as it was in the past. It’s fair to say there are noticeable shifts in what adulting was like to millennials compared to Gen Z. There are a lot of channels today on the internet people are expected to harness to make a living for themselves. And you’d better be doing it their way to amass their accolades, so it is.
The push to be successful isn’t the problem here. The problem instead is how pressed on our necks society is about hitting it big early. While some do, without a doubt, many people don’t. It takes some long years of learning, refining, submission, and other things to figure out themselves. Parents sometimes even don’t help in keeping their children’s heads straight as they look at them through the lenses of their friends.
It’s as though everyone wants you to bail from the literal life process to manoeuvre your way to success. But success here is usually about how much money you make, what you can afford, and how your life makes a tell of your cash. It’s an uneasy take on the typical young adult.
Even though we might hate it to be about money, we hate to be dependent regardless and want to make enough for our basic needs by ourselves.
What does it mean to be successful today? If money doesn’t come along with your other thoughts, you probably have enough to get you by, with your umpteenth generations unborn. Not many people would love to sit around a table where money isn’t discussed. Our aspirations for the future even revolve around the paycheck in the end. We may say it’s about the impact all we want, but we won’t stand the chance of not getting the cash for it.
We may want to trackback where and how our angst began. I think it has always been ꟷ this willingness to match up with others of our cadre. A toddler will most likely have his mum get him the same snack as his friend’s from creche. Progressing to elementary school, the same kid wouldn’t have his parents rest unless he gets the exact toy car like his friend’s. It’s a continuum. No matter how badly we hate to admit it, it’s our reality.
It’s like rationing our outcomes based on our surroundings, with the surroundings acting as the determinants. It may be innate, the craving to be like someone else. Because no matter how bad we think someone is, there’s always someone out there looking up to such a personality.
Regardless of our values, we always look for someone with the same principles. We read about them, study their lifestyles, and thread their paths on most occasions. Our principles are always backed, with people being participatory. It is just what it is.
A huge number of teenage depression and anxiety wraps around this. We know that happiness is subjective, and we get to own that. We should by ourselves learn to choose what we want and, with our paces, work towards them.
Somehow, the angst comes off as societal impositions. Maybe it isn’t after all. Maybe it’s just our cravings with inclinations to the society fad. It might just be ourselves not wanting to be down the success chain. Our angst might be traced down to us, our values, and our hopes for our lives. Society owns the painting, while we’re the artists trying so hard to make a perfect replica of it.
Leave a Reply