Just because you have thousands of followers and your own YouTube channel, it doesn’t mean you are a star or that you’ve made it.
I know I am going to sound like those previous generation aunties who find fault with everything the younger generation does, but some things must be said at the cost of sounding fuddy duddy. To reassure you, we too were told things, when we were in our 20s, but things were still genteel then, never this overwhelming.
All you young ( from teenagers to 20 somethings), wake up to a reality check. Just because you have thousands of followers and your own YouTube channel, it doesn’t mean you are a star or that you’ve made it. Think of those writers, painters, philosophers, and Nobel laureates who worked for decades together, and spent their whole life closeted in some musty laboratory or house in remote Boston, working. For instance, the French writer, Annie Ernaux, who won the Nobel for literature last year wrote her books in anonymity (for when she became known, she was reviled in France for her feminism), received the Nobel at 80 plus years. It takes years to achieve anything that is worthwhile, but kids now think they are stars because they have innumerable people giving them a thumbs up for a photo they posted on Insta with Shahrukh Khan or Priyanka Chopra. Of course, we don’t realise, these stars too have worked for
years in anonymity, before they became stars on whose success you want to ride now.
Ah, there is another old-fashioned word called ‘manners’ that Gen Now is forgetting. A friend even holds a class called style and manners where she teaches the very young not just how to hold a fork and eat at a table, but something called manners. When you think about it, why do you need to go to a class to learn that you have to be courteous and polite? That you have to
speak softly, that you don’t grab things; you need to stand in queues, and you need to say thank you and please. But apparently, you do need someone to tell you all these things, as you can see from the popularity of her classes. I could go on about Gen Now. Either because the parents or grandparents have not taught them certain things, or may be because of their arrogance where
they think they are always right, and have forgotten basic courtesies that need to be followed. At all costs. For one, to give another person, especially an elder, respect and attention. We have not got this grey without some wisdom
we gained along the way. And even if you guys don’t agree with our views, there is no need to get upset and raise your voice. You have not gained that privilege as yet, as not only have you not seen the world, but your knowledge mostly comes from social media.
This sounds so basic, but have we parents forgotten to tell our kids to wake up, make beds, clean their rooms, clean themselves up, instead of lolling in bed and scrolling on their phones? Why have we encouraged sloth where they
hang around in pjs and night clothes the whole day considering they have heaps of clothes for which they are constantly shopping in malls. I am not generalizing about all kids (a fault of my gen I know) but a majority don’t have a sense of discipline or loyalty. A friend who runs a marketing agency and recruits 20 somethings was telling us how one of the girls announced one day that her boyfriend had broken up with her, so she was stressed and needed to go to the mall. Her employer aghast, told her that life would be full of such break-ups, and that didn’t mean she could shirk her responsibilities. She was of course sacked, but that didn’t affect her so much,
as she was neither attached to her profession nor her company! We too get interns who disappear on us, or keep their phones switched off when the time to submit the assignment comes. And guess what, at the end of it all, they have the temerity to ask us for letters of recommendation! I do ask this generation that will have to face more climate change and relationship issues, more Trump-like leaders, to sit up and think about their lives and the world. Read. Learn to spell. Use less emojis. Don’t always call
Swiggy. You can sometimes eat the rice and sambhar mom has so lovingly made for you. Drop that sense of entitlement (parents don’t really have to buy you a new phone). And yes, grapple with the AI that will take over your world if you are not alert.