I’ve never really understood what exactly the problem is with our generation and I always seem to have mixed feelings about us. Sometimes I see us with the minds and motivation to change the world, and other times (or actually most of the time), we’re just spoiled brats.
Looking back at our parents’ generation, our grandparents and our ancestors, I don’t really understand what went wrong. But I can pinpoint what has changed, and to be honest, it does all come down to pretty much one thing: we’re spoiled. Yes, we’ve had it tough. Yes, the political and economical status hasn’t been in our favour, but is that really the problem? I think not.
Before you start judging, my observations and conclusions are based on the part of society I fit into, so this isn’t a generalization meant to describe all social levels, but the social level I am surrounded by.
Easy come, easy go
The majority of our parents have worked so hard to provide a better life for us that, in the process, we’ve always had the easy way out. Our parents have our best interests in mind and we feel constantly secure, knowing that there will always be someone to pick up the pieces. And because we’ve had it easy, we don’t appreciate the value of things as much.
Our parents are so focused on bringing us the best of everything and securing our future, that they forgot to teach us the importance of working hard to appreciate what we have. We’ve gotten the best education, a car and, for many of us, even an apartment for when we decide to get married.
Although it is practically impossible for someone in their twenties to be able to do that themselves, we do not realize the effort our parents had to put forth in order to go from nothing to what we have now, and so letting it go has become so easy.
Along the way, we have picked up the damaging message that if things don’t come easy, then they’re not worth fighting for and we’ve applied that to pretty much everything in our lives.
Relationships
Looking at relationships, there is one massive difference between our generation and older ones, and that is that they used to stick together.
It used to be shameful for a couple to leave each other’s sides and that’s why they used to stick with each other through thick and thin. Whatever the problem was, no matter how hurt they were, trying to patch things up and get through it would always be the first option, because leaving just wasn’t acceptable.
However, with our generation, when one obstacle stands in our way, or things aren’t as smooth as childhood fairytales, we give up in pursuit of an easier option.
We say we want to change the world but taking a step towards breaking a tradition or something that will raise questions or give us “waga3 demagh” is not worth it.
Religion
Religion used to play an important role in our lives, but what is this trend of trivializing religion and feeling that we’re so above it?
When will we realize that religion is not the enemy, but people who speak and do stupid things in the name of religion are the ones to blame.
If we truly understood our religion and put the effort to look into things and understand it ourselves, we’d know that. Not everything has to be given to us on a silver plate and not everything that is given to us on a silver plate is necessarily correct. Again… spoiled!
We believe we’re entitled to so much that we become reckless when we don’t get what we think we deserve. We hold on to terminologies, such as feminism, and expect certain rights without understanding what the term actually means or doing something to earn those rights.
Technology
While we think technology is a means to try and bring us together and stay connected wherever we are, what it has really been doing is pushing us apart. Our means of communication have become based on what we think a person might mean in texts rather than what their body language and tone of voice ensure they mean. We get upset because we weren’t a priority and someone saw our texts and didn’t feel the need to drop everything in their hands and get back to us.
Technology has connected us so much to the point where it has actually made us feel disconnected. What’s the purpose of seeing people if all we’re going to be doing is looking at our screens? We’ve become so focused on our virtual online life, that we forget to live the moment. We see the happy moments through a lens in our camera rather than live it and how happy it made us feel depends on how many likes it got.
Happiness
You know what our problem is? Our problem is that we don’t truly understand what happiness really is.
We’re bombarded by movies, books, pictures and online verifications of what happiness should be like. And that image or understanding, which is based on fictional grounds and disregarding reality, has made us unable to identify real happiness or appreciate it even when it hits us right in the face.
So why should we fight for something if we don’t believe it’s even worth fighting for? Our scales of what is right and what is wrong are becoming messed up.
But all things considered, isn’t that to be expected? We’ve disregarded religion and made it our mission to oppose it just so people don’t think we’re strict or uncool. And instead, we’ve turned to identifying with, copying and following “the real world”‘s moral guidelines.
The thing that bothers me the most is that we have the technology, the resources and the minds to make this world a better place and instead we choose to numb ourselves and just blindly follow a path of what, in my opinion, will lead to our destruction.
We’ve been surrounded by people who don’t have a conscience starting from the fakahany that sells rotten fruits to the judges who give out verdicts based on their loyalty rather than justice. We’ve been brought up believing that a bribe or a wasta is our way to get to places rather than hard work.
Do we have faith, trust, a conscience or perseverance? Whether we have morals or not is even in question. So how do we expect for anything good to come out of this generation if we’re letting this corruption define us and being affected by all the negative influences around us?
It isn’t easy to be the odd one out, but I look around me and I am genuinely concerned about our generation and the generations to come and I just wish we had the courage and the motive to turn this all around and move forward instead of taking one step forward and two step backs.
I hope the light at the end of the tunnel comes back on.
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