A Pint of Reality: Generation Y reflection

Today I had one of those moments where I was able to articulate exactly what was in my head. This kind of moment only really occurs once I am halfway through my first pint. And this moment was no exception!

A friend and I were discussing the Generation Y article that was trending recently and pondering on how true it is that our generation suffers from this sense of disillusionment with reality.

I felt compelled to capture the gist of our conversation here.

Speaking as a Catholic, I want to believe that I am striving to live my life in accordance with the teachings of Christ and that I am not pursuing worldly things. However! Deep down inside me I am really saying, “Man, I want to be great!”

I have an innate desire to be remembered, to make history, to have people read my poems and stories and feel that my short time on earth has made an impact. I desire purpose.

Perhaps it goes back to old Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Many of my generation in the first world, myself included, don’t understand the reality of working to survive. Our parents have been there to provide for us and we know that when push comes to shove we can put on a sad face and go back home and we’ll get a cup of tea and a Marie Biscuit.  To me this is what differentiates us from our folks and even more, from their folks. Once they were out of the home that was it! They were out in the cold, forging their own way. And to have a job, to be putting bread on the table was enough of a success, enough of a purpose to fulfill them. As my friend stated in our discussion people were having children much earlier back then. Now we have all this faff time and it makes us think too much. It makes us terrified to commit to anything in the fear that it will be the “wrong” thing and won’t give us that warm fuzzy feeling inside that makes us know we’re on the right track.

So where does this leave us?

People who are great, I believe, are people who go against the current culture.  People who choose to go their own way, not content with the status quo. That’s what we’ve heard, over and over and that has “cursed” our thinking as a generation. Because we ALL want to be that person. We want to bring down the system, bring down the man, save the planet, write a blog!

But we’re not listening are we?

It’s true. To be great we need to go against the culture. But the culture is screaming, BE GREAT!

And here’s the rub.

I believe that to be great in our generation we have to choose to not be great. We need to embrace anonymity. Be an unknown saint.

Be okay with no one ever knowing your name. Just be a blip in the chasm of the millennia.

  

I don’t think that anyone who was ever of any significance chose to be great. They had a belief which they pursued with dogged perseverance. They never said it was fun or fulfilling. Someone else told us that.

Thinking like that is terrifying. But that’s because it’s been hammered into us that we’re special and unique and important and everyone should care what we have to say.

I note this theme in the story of my life recently, with Pope Francis and the way he is leading the Church toward a simpler way of existence, a more Christ like existence. There is a truth in this way of thinking. Sure enough we find it in Matthew 20 verse 17, "So the last will be first, and the first will be last.".

I believe that once our generation can let go of the DESIRE to be great. We will find fulfillment  That is the way to break our disillusionment. We've been told that’s giving up.

I think that’s nonsense.

If our goal is to be happy and this obsessive pursuit of greatness is supposed to achieve that goal, it’s not working.

So, be okay with being unknown. That is what I am striving for in my own life and for the most part failing miserably. Perhaps I’m failing by writing this blog. I am telling myself if no one reads it then that’s okay. The pleasure was in the writing.

I’ll work on it.

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Percy Bysshe Shelley