“With age comes wisdom”- we have all heard that saying. While I don’t consider myself wise, I do feel I have reached a place in my life were I am making better choices because of the mistakes I made in my past. I don’t feel its an age thing, as I feel I made some solid, responsible choices in my 20s and I have many friends who are wise beyond their years.
Today someone told me they were quitting their job. My first question was where was their new job, as no one quits a job without a new one to step into, right? He has no new job, not yet. And this is what started me thinking about when one about when wisdom comes. Yes, this person is younger than me by 20 years, but I don’t see youth as an excuse. At 27 I was married, owned a home and had been in working at the same company for several years. So, it wasn’t age, it was an inherent sense of responsibility. I made my share of mistakes in my 20s, but I always made sure I had a job to pay the bills. I was also diagnosed with a chronic medical condition at 24 which requires expensive medical treatment that without insurance are impossible, so in addition to money to pay my bills, I had to maintain medical insurance. Maybe my medical issues aged me faster than some, but I still think by 27 most people realize their responsibilities.
Many people today seem to feel the younger generation are more entitled and spoiled than those before. Just about every kid over the age of 12 has their own cell phone and expects the latest and greatest model as they are released. Kids are also taught at an early age with every second of their day planned to entertain them, that the world seems to revolve around them. This is how the entitlement starts. If you aren’t expected to entertain yourself for even a car ride around town without a DVD playing or a hand-held device to pass the time, then how are you expected to learn about personal responsibility? Everything is provided for them, with no requirement to earn it for the most part. So the question is, if everything is provided, what choices do the younger generation have to make? Without choices, how do they learn what the right choices are and ultimately, how to survive on their own?
This is a topic we struggle with in our home, as my husband’s daughter is 13 and we are trying help her develop strong life skills. She is a good kid, gets good grades and is an all-around decent human being. However, she is unable to do some pretty basic things without supervision or constant direction. I, of course, blame her mother, who has gone over board in babying her to keep her dependent. I guess that is what some parents tend to do when facing an empty nest after being a parent for 25+ years (she has older kids from a previous marriage). I can’t help but wonder if the rising divorce rate plays a part in the entitlement of the younger generations. My parents were divorced, but I don’t recall them battling to “one up” each other when it came to me. I lived with my mom, saw my dad on weekends, that was the norm “back in the day”. Today many parents share custody with kids spending half their time with each parent. Rather than the rules and expectations being enforced daily, they shuffle back and forth between two homes, often with different house rules and expectations.
I am noticing more of my peers are struggling to pay for college for their kids, taking money from their retirement accounts or taking a second mortgage on their homes to make sure junior graduates with no debt. That is great if you can afford it, but college is a privilege, not a right. I paid my way through college and took out loans which I paid back. I believe knowing I was paying for it made me work harder, I didn’t take anything for granted. Shouldn’t college be the time for kids to start taking responsibility for themselves? If college is nothing more than an extension of high school with a huge price tag, what’s the point? It’s not just learning the lessons from the lectures and books, but about living on your own, budgeting and time management. I think those are as valuable, if not more so, than what is learned in books. If we don’t learn it in college, then when?
So, back to my original thought, when does wisdom come? It is not like we wake up at 40, 50 or older and have all the answers. Life is about choices. We often learn life’s biggest lessons from the wrong choices. Touch the hot stove, you learn not to make that mistake again. Get your heartbroken, with luck you learn not fall for that type of person the next time. The list goes on and on, but what about for those who are protected from the burden of making choices for themselves? Those who never learn the life lessons from falling and making mistakes. Does wisdom every come to those people?
Southern Belle in Hell 