Excuses and 8-Second Attention Spans
I've heard, as most people have, the term "culture shock." Even in my small- town existence, I have experienced culture shock at different points in my life (the majority being when we travel to somewhere that doesn't serve sweet tea). However, I never expected to experience it in my 600-something populated hometown. And all I had to do was become a teacher.
The epidemic of which I speak is not exclusive to America's high schools. The individuals cannot see they are infected, so they seep out into the "real world" and to higher institutions, making others others pay the price for their distorted realities. This generation is not only a different culture, but sometimes just a whole different breed of individual. At times, it is like the first step off a boat into an uncharted land.
No longer is this a world where we own up to our mistakes, find our own strength, and work around the obstacles that plague life. Instead, it is a world of the blame game, complaining, and giving up. I am grateful that there are still those of us that reside in the reality of times past; those that not only live by different standards and principles, but are passing those ideals along to others.
We dwell in a world of whiners. They are the generation of forever dependents, who would rather have a pity party than a birthday party, even though they somehow deserve an award just for existing on the planet.
This population would rather complain than be grateful to those who care. They would rather make excuses about being swept up in being a "life junkie" and living a certain way than to own up to the fact that they are just plain participating in destructive behavior. They are plagued with thoughts of well-placed selfishness, convincing themselves that their decisions affect only them and that consequences are just temporary.
This is a group that can't pull themselves up by their bootstraps, because they have shed their boots in protest for yet another thing they are offended by. They have somehow been genetically altered so that information and advice travel in a direct path in one ear, only to exit the other with no residue or retention. It is easier to give up than to try. It is easier to complain than to conquer.
Emily Dickinson may have dwelled in possibility, but I dwell in the land of excuses, eight-second attention spans, and snowflakes.
