“I don’t want to find out one day that I’m at the end of someone else’s life.”
—Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford), Out of Africa
I’ve been reevaluating my formerly rosy opinion of our nation’s youth. Over the past month, I have had to deal with millennial incompetence, indifference, and downright insolence on an almost daily basis. The effect it’s having on me isn’t pretty. Soon I will be sitting on the porch in my pajamas, brandishing my Lady Smith .38 special and shouting, “Get off my lawn!”
Just this week, I commiserated with a friend who’s my age. She and I were schoolmates from kindergarten through high school. We sat in the waiting room of my doctor’s office and grumped about those darned kids. Why are so many of them so irresponsible? And why do they — as Scripture would say — resist the rod of correction?
This news was delivered with fresh-faced innocence, as if such a snafu had been totally unavoidable.
Now, by “the rod of correction,” please be assured that I don’t mean my .38. I merely mean that many young people can’t stand criticism, however polite and constructive it might be. They appear incapable of making any connection between responsibility and potential improvement. To them, it seems to be a very nasty game of tag. At all cost, they want to avoid being “it."
My friend had driven me to my appointment for the first time several days before. We’d then been informed — only after our arrival — that the pretty young thing behind the desk had scheduled it for the one day of the week when the doctor was not in that office. This news was delivered with fresh-faced innocence, as if such a snafu had been totally unavoidable. When we returned for the rescheduled appointment, we were kept waiting for an hour and a half — this time with no explanation, and as if our annoyance were a major cross to bear. By then I had lost all confidence that things would turn out right this time, and couldn’t bring myself to believe I’d actually see the doctor until she and I were face to face.
A few days before my trip to the doctor with my friend, I called our local communications monopoly to cancel my telephone service. They informed me that for internet service alone, I would be charged over $90 a month. I complained about this, and asked the customer service rep to check and see if I might get a better rate. I don’t think I was especially harsh, but the little darling must not have liked my tone. While he had me on hold, he disconnected not only my telephone service — immediately — but also my call.
When he goes home to mother, perhaps she’ll sue the company.
Perhaps he believed he’d taught me a lesson, though I don’t know what it might have been. I called his supervisor on my cellphone and filed a complaint. She was a few decades older than the service rep. She readily agreed that his conduct had been unacceptable. Had I gotten yet another twenty-something, I probably would have been asked what I’d done to provoke it.
I don’t want to think too hard about the reaction the supervisor will get when she writes up the infraction. The service rep may take an early retirement in tears. When he goes home to mother, perhaps she’ll sue the company. I’m sure I’ll be accused of having done grave damage to his self-esteem. No one in his little world is likely to wonder why his self-esteem is so fragile in the first place.
It doesn’t seem to have occurred to him that he could have simply gotten back on the line, told me that no specials or discounts were available, and had an end to the transaction. I would have been unhappy, but not unpleasant. It was what I expected to hear, but because I have to work for my money, I thought it worthwhile to ask. He evidently thought the danger that I might react unhappily too horrible a prospect to face.
Without the ability and willingness to take individual responsibility, no human being has any real power at all.
From a millennial’s perspective, I have two strikes against me. I am a middle-aged woman — a creature who, I can attest from my own years in customer service, is notoriously feisty. I am also a libertarian. Combine those traits and you get someone who doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
Of the political philosophies in currency today, only ours makes the connection between personal responsibility and power. We tend to see responsibility, in other words, not as a bad thing, but as at least a potentially good one. With responsibility comes the ability to learn, to change course, and to grow. Without the ability and willingness to take individual responsibility, no human being has any real power at all.
In shielding young people from accountability, parents and authority figures have done them no favors. Blame is treated like a hot potato — or a hand grenade. Feeling bad is not considered a possible prelude to feeling better. It’s avoided as if it were a deadly disease.
Deep down, they know they have no power over anything. Nor is their generation the only one wearing such shackles.
Young people today give every indication that they feel not only blameless, but powerless. For all their strut and bravado about taking power, their very vulnerability attests to the fact that deep down, they know they have no power over anything. Nor is their generation the only one wearing such shackles. Their parents — and often, grandparents — are similarly entrapped.
These trusting souls, of all ages, must believe that it’s nice of the mainstream media, and all those kindhearted politicians and academic experts, to tell them what to think and how to feel. It seems to relieve them of having to think, or to interpret their feelings, for themselves. Apparently they never ask themselves whether those who tell them what to think and how to feel have undertaken this task out of the goodness of their hearts.
They couldn’t possibly have an ulterior motive. It couldn’t be that they want power and control for themselves. For suspecting such a thing, I must definitely be a cranky old lady and a crazy libertarian. But as I inch nearer to the end of my life, I don’t need to worry that I’ll find myself at the end of anyone else’s.
