Life is Hard but Worth It

I've come to the conclusion, possibly erroneously, that we are not making it clear to our children and grandchildren how hard life actually is.

When I was growing up my parents had lived through the great depression and World War 2 and they had no illusions about how life was a struggle and this got communicated to me and my compatriots in many ways.

Of course we had it a lot easier than they did, although of course we had Vietnam which for many was devastating and individuals had their trials but all in all the years I grew up in were just easier and different than the past.

We also had TV which, more than radio, showed you a rosy view of the world and how all problems got solved.  You had families that seemed too perfect to be true (they were) and everyone was good looking, well dressed and in a mere 30 minutes to an hour less commercials, the situations got resolved.

Of course for many of us life wasn't like T.V. but we all wanted it to be like that and disregarding the fact that bad things did happen to some people, we were able as a generation to celebrate the sexual revolution, the age of Aquarius, the overall success of the economy and the abundance of good paying jobs.

We had been taught by the prior generation that things could be hard, but most of the time they weren't and when they did go bad we had identity crises.

The ideas and values we passed along were very different than the ones we were raised with and the new reality was reinforced by technology which was explosive in development and usage.

Our children weren't sent out to play, they went on play dates, carefully arranged to be with the right people.

They didn't play pick up games, they engaged in organized sports supervised and watched.

We started awarding people for participation instead of winning and while at some point winning was rewarded, losing wasn't your fault anymore.

The list goes on and on and of course there are exceptions but the world the latter generations grew up in was presented as less dangerous and more reliable.

It wasn't though, its still hard and so when things like the financial crisis or tech bust came along, the reaction of many wasn't to get up and work harder, it was to look for someone to blame.

Others looked for someone who promised to fix it.

I have a lot of faith in humanity and ultimately people will rise to the occasion, they always have.  I'm a afraid though we did many a disservice and because of that they might have to deal with harder times than they should have.

Don't give up.  It might seem harder than it looked (it is) but life is a glorious thing and when you finally do what you need to do to get past your troubles, it will all be worth it.

It really will because in the end life is actually all about participation so participate.