The Kids These Days

Darci, a friend from college, and I were talking yesterday about the latest employee who left my office (much more about this in an upcoming post) and it afforded me the opportunity to launch into yet another rant about "the kids these days."

What's going on with kids these days? They don't want to start at the bottom and work their way anywhere! They have such a sense of entitlement! They think the world owes them something!

"You need to calm down," Darci said. "I've watched you get crankier and crankier about this kind of thing for the past couple of years. Why do you care about what other people are doing? Why does what one dumb girl does upset you so much?"

Why does this kind of thing upset me? Why do I take personal offense to what "the kids" are thinking and doing? I think it's because when I moved to New York, I thought the world owed me something. I thought I'd take New York by storm--be discovered, be famous, be successful. And it hasn't happened. It won't happen. At least not the way I'd always thought and hoped it would.

This isn't meant to be a depressive, whiny post. I define success differently than I used to. I'm glad I'm not a delusional 25 year-old anymore. I'm glad I don't have the same kind of impossible daydreams. But I worry that over the past few years, I've grown more bitter, more jaded. I don't what to be that person who isn't capable of being happy for someone else's success. I don't want to look away from the bookstands heralding the newest best-seller or be instantly rooting against the fresh-faced, hopeful new transplant to the city.

I still want a part of me to be the girl Darci remembers from college. I want to get excited about projects and have all the faith in the world that no matter what it is, I'll be great enough to make it work. Unfortunately, I'm old enough now to know better.