Sundays with Sarah (34)

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Hi everyone, welcome to another Sundays with Sarah.

I know I haven't been keeping up with my weekly Sunday posts but as like others, I've been busy.

This week I want to share a few things with my readers. Over the past few weeks I have been studying a great many things about people and kids and how we are interact in the world and started comparing how youth today and even adults have vastly changed over the past 20 to 30 years.

it is hard not to miss how teens today are a lot more "independent" if you want to call it that, and how they think that they rule the world around them.

Teens today, believe money grows on trees.

Something someone wrote years ago strikes me and other hard and shows us some truth in how we see the world. Teens today take way too much for granted, and they believe that everything will be handed to them on a silver platter when in fact that the world we live in today struggles a lot more than it did 20-30 years ago. Adults today who were kids back then know that the world that we live in was created by our parents and so forth and now that we are the parents we use those skills or lack thereof to raise our kids today.

So why is there more crime, bullying, selfishness and neglect today than there was back then?

During the 80's things such as the internet, cell phones, computers (for the most part weren't seen in the home), large screen televisions, reality TV and high end techie gadgets and such didn't really exist. Television shows were considerably tamer in comparison to what they are now and the stories and influences on the minds were not as convoluted as they are today.

20-30 years later, media now dictates what we see and how we learn, the introduction of the internet has now paved the way for a more open and changing world, but most of all the advent of all the technology is now making the world a very small place. Facebook has redefined the 6 degrees of separation and has reduced it to just 3 degrees and although it has good there is the bad.

Those who were children of the 80's and now soon to be 90's, we are the ones running the world, shaping the minds of today's youth but are we doing as good of a job as our parents did?

Today, teens and youth are doing more drugs, cyber-bullying is causing greater harm than regular bullying, media rarely if ever reports anything "good" or "happy" and television and mass media are starting to form a virtual society where we all are so connected that even privacy is a concern. Girls no longer, write in diaries and play Barbies, go to parks or even are as social as we were in the 80's/90's; boy no longer play in groups and do street hockey, and rarely know what the outside is like. Teens today are so glued to a world of technology that if in an instant we were all to lose that technology they probably wouldn't know how to survive. Kids are spending more time playing video games, or wrapped up in trying to have a relationship and sex by age 12, that the innocence of what the world was back then is no longer apparent in the world today.

But even as adults we all take things for granted. When was the last time anyone has ever handwritten a letter to someone and waited for a response? The days of pen pals and written correspondence are becoming a thing of the past. Is the world becoming too convenient? Are we becoming so lax that we indulge in the selfish nature instead of helping others?

Sure we all band together and help others in times of crisis, but when there isn't a disaster taking place we are as greedy and selfish as anyone else. Teens are also just as bad. We dream of a better world but yet we are expecting others to change it for us.

As the following states -- we are all part of a lost generation.

I am part of a lost generation
and I refuse to believe that
I can change the world
I realize this may be a shock but
“Happiness comes from within.”
is a lie, and
“Money will make me happy.”
So in 30 years I will tell my children
they are not the most important thing in my life
My employer will know that
I have my priorities straight because
work
is more important than
family
I tell you this
Once upon a time
Families stayed together
but this will not be true in my era
This is a quick fix society
Experts tell me
30 years from now, I will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of my divorce
I do not concede that
I will live in a country of my own making
In the future
Environmental destruction will be the norm
No longer can it be said that
My peers and I care about this earth
It will be evident that
My generation is apathetic and lethargic
It is foolish to presume that
There is hope.
And all of this will come true unless we choose to reverse it .
There is hope.
It is foolish to presume that
My generation is apathetic and lethargic
It will be evident that
My peers and I care about this earth
No longer can it be said that
Environmental destruction will be the norm
In the future
I will live in a country of my own making
I do not concede that
30 years from now, I will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of my divorce
Experts tell me
This is a quick fix society
but this will not be true in my era
Families stayed together
Once upon a time
I tell you this
family
is more important than
work
I have my priorities straight because
My employer will know that
they are not the most important thing in my life
So in 30 years I will tell my children
“Money will make me happy.”
is a lie, and
“Happiness comes from within.”
I realize this may be a shock but
I can change the world
and I refuse to believe that
I am part of a lost generation

This incredible piece was brilliantly written by Jonathan Reed, and it shows just how we all have changed in the world. If this was written 20-30 years ago, and everyone understood it's meaning would the world be in the shape it's in now? Who knows.

We all want a world where we are kids who grow to be young adults, still learning about the world, where we aren't driven by technology to be better than someone else, or looks that are so distorted that they set unrealistic expectations. We all want a world where, when we grow up love and trust still exist, and parents work harder to have better families instead of giving up at the first sign of trouble. Parents today rarely take into consideration the wishes of their kids who are always caught in the middle and end up being taught that the other parent is so bad that they teach that child to not love them. Kids today now use their parents to barter for attention on who is better or are bribed themselves into one side over the other. Teens today are growing up younger and younger and are expected to be "parents" at a young age to their younger siblings and the parents become selfish for themselves.

The world isn't the same as it used to be and it will change more when our kids grow up and have to take care of us. What will we do when our kids push us away when as parents we pushed them away, what is it that we are doing in this world at teaching the morals and ethics of responsibility and showing what trust and family foundation is.

But with all that said, things won't change until we all start recognizing that it needs to. We are all part of a lost generation, we all need to resort out our priorities and we all must realize that money doesn’t make us happy, but it's the friends and family of those around us. Some people still believe in this philosophy while others are caught in the greed of the world where wealth and power is driven.

Youth today find it harder to trust adults because they all feel they are being betrayed when families can't stay together. Divorce is more common place today and that the new "norm" is that dysfunctional families are considered what is easy instead of what is right. I have known some people who enter into marriage to have kids only to where in the end they file for a divorce because they believe it was right and what is now expected of them. Does love even exist anymore? Trust me when I say having kids changes a person, and raising a family is never easy, but we all must start learning to what it means to be someone in a world where we are all part of that lost generation.

It's harder from my experience because I'm an individual who struggles with social agoraphobia (fear of people and groups of people) but my fear is driven from what the world is now...more cruel and unforgiving than it was a long time ago. Although the world can be sympathetic to the plights of others, we are all still selfish in out needs to be part of society. The gap of rich and poor is growing wider and wider apart that it will get to a point where we all start segregating those who we feel are inferior.

We are no longer part of the solution, fixing the problem; we are now the problem with no fixable solution.

If we learned to be human, start caring for others even when we don't need to, the world can be better. We need to be more accepting of those who want to enter into same sex unions, or change gender because they believe they were born into the wrong body, just because someone is Muslim doesn't make them all bad. I have a few friends who are and they are awesome people. We were all given free will to believe in what we want, to be who we want, and live how we want.

One thing I do admire about youth today as opposed back 20 to 30 years ago, is they are a lot more forgiving with others than adults are today. In some cases we can also learn a thing or two from the tweens and teens we raise today --

We really need to chill!

Thanks for tuning in I will make another post soon.

Take care all.