I have come to understand how much the difference between generations truly affect the world we live in. Each generation (with 10 years in between) have their own customs and understandings of life for they have been born around the same political, economical and social whereabouts. For this good enough reason, the issue between these eras of differentiation bring on trends and new ideas no one understands but each separate group.
I came to realize this a few hours ago. Having lunch with my parents, per usual, I started bringing up topics we don't usually speak about. Normally im ignored or laughed at, which doesn't make me sad at all, i understand, they see me as if im young and naive. I'm actually flattered when they think my ideas are crazy, because it means Im thinking above and beyond them… moving on. During today's lunch I brought on the topic of generations, and which generations we each belong to, and what goes/went on during each.
All these questions started to be asked by my parents to us, their kids and vice versa. Their questions had a nervous undertone, and ours had a daring one. Its so funny to see how shocking our new generations are to them. My parents, are late baby boomers and very early generation x; Whilst me and my siblings were all born in the millenial or the z (I) generations. Most generations before the Millenials are pretty similar to each other, and the n
ew ones are similar with each other but not really with the ones before. There is a huge noticeable gap between the old and the new ideas and beliefs.
“What will you do when your daughter comes up to you and says she's moving out to live with her boyfriend?”
“What are you going to do if your children are gay?”
“I expected a different answer from you!”
“Millennials all believe they'll be successful, you are all lazy and maintained.”
These are all real life questions and comments made by my parents directly to us. I truly find it funny, never taking any of these personally because I insist, we have to understand that we are all shaped by the ideas and times we are raised in. This world is seen so differently by older people than by young teens and adults. There's been a shift in technology that is now our number one tool and we basically depend on it, it educates us daily. Never before, had there ever been as many influential people and as many products offered as there are nowadays. The difference of lifestyles there used to be before, that our parents took 50-60 years to be able to give to us, are now our normality. We have learned to live comfortably, and social media has taught us that we have to live fashionably and be very very cool.
Beauty is found in all of this. The zeitgeist is present and working its magic. The world is getting crazier and more revolutionized by the second. The acceptance and excitement of new generations is beautiful, while the rejection of older generations is funny now. We (millenials/Gen Z) all understand that success is hard to achieve, but we all know we´ll have it.
What does success truly mean? Who cares right? In the end, hope is all we got.
Xoxo, Stella.