Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Self Esteem for the Me Me Me generation

Millenials are born from 1980 until 2000

Begin quote from the May 20th 2013 Time Magazine on page 28 top right: "They got this way partly because, in the 1970s, people wanted to improve kids chances of success by instilling self-esteem.
It turns out that self esteem is great for getting a job or hooking up at a bar but not so great for keeping a job or a relationship. " end quote from page 28 of the May 20th 2013 Time magazine.

I also had an experience like this in the 1960s. I found I could talk my way into literally any job whether I was qualified for it or not. I found I could date girls all over the place but wasn't ready to settle down and live with any of them until I was 25. This sounds really familiar to me. The funny thing also is that I have a daughter now that I'm 65 that is 17 that is in this generation and another daughter 24 that is in this generation and a married God Daughter born in 1985 that is also in this generation. But I hadn't realized just how similar in some ways they were to my generation of Baby Boomers.

I also learned from starting working after school and on weekends when I was 10 with a newspaper route on my bicycle that I could earn money for whatever I wanted to do starting in 1958. So I also had money to do whatever my parents would allow me to do and to buy including bicycles, toys, cars (starting at age 16 one month after I got my license) and motorcycles to ride at home or in the desert where my father liked to go on weekends after I was 12. However, today getting a job that actually pays is pretty difficult because adults get all those jobs now just to survive. And starting at age 15 I also had money for dating girls which was really great too.

2nd quote from same page: "Just tell your kids you love them. It's a better message," says Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at the University of San Diego, who wrote "Generation Me and the Narcissistic Epidemic". "When they're little it seems cute to tell them they're special or a princess or a rock star or whatever their T-shirt says. When they're 14 it's no longer cute." All that self esteem leads them to be disappointed when the world refuses to confirm just how great they are. "This generation has the highest likelihood of having unmet expectations with respect to their careers and the lowest levels of satisfaction with their careers at the stage that they're at," says Sean Lyons, co-editor of "Managing the New Workforce: International Perspectives on the Millenial Generation". "It is a sort of crisis of unmet expectations." end quote from bottom part of page 28.

I think that every generation is going to be disappointed in their careers. It is a given. I have always believed that one's 20s is when one learns to give up unrealistic expectations, find a way to cope with whatever life brings them or they just won't be around in their 30s at all. Every generation deals with this. Life is hard and trying to find even one reason to stay alive sometimes is hard especially if you don't have kids to raise. That really changes everything if you have kids. If it doesn't change everything then maybe you shouldn't have kids. My kids kept me alive after my first one was born when I was 26 years old. I have been raising now constantly someone or more under age 17 since I was 26 years old in 1974. And that has always given me a reason to succeed for them even if not for me personally. Career wasn't what kept me going no matter what. It was my kids.

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