If you change the word chatter in the above quote to text, the comment would sound as if it was expressed in a group of adults who were grumbling about the attitude and behavior of today’s young people. In reality it was uttered by Socrates somewhere between 469 and 399 BC.
It seems that the older generation frequently has a less than positive view of one that will follow it. Today you hear adult talks about young people’s sense of entitlement. “Young people feel they have ‘a right’ to the things that we had to work hard to get: an education, a job, a car, financial stability, respect” is a frequently heard complaint.
Hey, maybe Socrates was on to something. Maybe young people are too self-centered to consider anything beyond their own needs.
Well, undoubtedly there are some young folks who deserve this kind of criticism, but that is hardly the complete story of young people today as my wife Brie and I have discovered as we work on our new book Surrounded by Heroes. The book, as I mention on my Welcome Page, chronicles the inspiring stories of young people who rather than focusing on their own needs have dedicated themselves to making the lives of the less fortunate better.
The young people in our book range in age from seven to twenty-one. All of them have engaged in major humanitarian projects before they even graduated from high school. Many of those projects have been initiated by these youngsters and they have recruited thousands of other people, the young and the mature, who contribute to or work in their projects.
A seven year old girl with a big heart sees a mother with a child her age at a check-out counter. The mother is returning groceries to her shopping cart because she can’t afford them and the little girl decides to start her own food pantry to help mothers like this one. A seven year old boy loves to drive racing cars but he’s doing it for much more than just sheer enjoyment; he’s on a mission to raise money to help families who have a child suffering from cancer. A young high school boy’s passion for skiing leaves him paralyzed. Rather than spending his time feeling sorry for himself, he creates a charity that purchases wheelchairs for people in Vietnam with similar injuries who can’t afford a
wheelchair.
These are just three of the twenty students whose stories we chronicle in our book. All of them have one thing in common; they saw someone else’s need and felt compelled to do something about it. These kids belie the notion that all young people are simply self-focused and feel “entitled”. They embody what many young people today are seeking—empowerment, the conviction that they have the power to make the world a better place in which to live.
One of the young people in our book, speaking to people her age put it this way: “Believe in yourself. You can’t say it simpler than that. And once you believe in yourself you have to put your ideas on paper. Then you need to make them happen. It might be hard; you might think it’s difficult to help people, but once you get the ball rolling, it’s not difficult if you have passion. “Act with your heart and let your passion lead you to help others.”
Back in 1963 John W. Gardner, who would later become US Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in President Lyndon Johnson’s administration, wrote: “One of the most difficult problems we face is to make it possible for young people to participate in the great tasks of their time. We have designed our society in such a way that most of the possibilities open to young people are either bookish or frivolous.” (Self Renewal,
p.126)
Perhaps the problem with young people whom we criticize for being too self-focused isn’t so much their problem as ours. In failing to engage them in the great tasks of our times, in restricting them to activities that are merely bookish and frivolous, perhaps we have inadvertently condemned them to being self-focused and frivolous. We can change. We can find ways to engage our young people in the great tasks of our times and empower them to help make our world a better place in which to live. What do you
think?
For those of you who may be interested in engaging young people in the great tasks of our time, check the links below to see what some schools are already doing. And if you as an individual or your school is doing something, please consider sharing it with
us.
http://www.nais.org/Articles/Pages/Challenge-20-20-Program-Details.aspx
http://ginsing.earcos-global-issues-network.org/