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Insightful and open-minded pieces conversations that help you see the world with greater clarity. The bi-weekly roadmap to a more intentional and fulfilling life.
Thanks for tuning in to Wit and Wisdom with Tom Green, where we start conversations on the things that really matter. This is episode number 169 of the Wit and Wisdom Podcast. We're glad you're here. If you enjoy this conversation, we hope you'll share this podcast with a couple of friends. We're always looking to meet new people.
Tom Greene:As you probably know, we've been going through a period of unprecedented prosperity. And the question we're raising today is whether or not that prosperity created an entire generation unprepared for life. See, historically happiness in The United States followed a reliable arc. A perfect U shaped curve. We were happy when we were young and carefree.
Tom Greene:Not so happy during the pressure filled midlife years. And then happy again later in life. But today, happiness is crashing much earlier and that should worry us. Because we pushed this generation hard, relentlessly hard. The script was clear.
Tom Greene:Work hard, get good grades, stay out of trouble, get into a good college, and all your wildest dreams will come true. But I think we both know that's not always the case. This generation grew up during the most affluent period in human history. More money, better schools, safer neighborhoods, nicer cars, and fancier clothes. Youth sports leagues that required family algorithms to manage the overlapping seasons.
Tom Greene:Tutors and SAT prep courses replaced after school jobs. For the truly affluent, college kids enjoyed summers studying and partying abroad in places like Oxford and Cortona. But why stock shelves at Target when you should be stacking AP classes, attending travel soccer tournaments, doing SAT prep, and volunteering to impress the admissions committees. But once the training wheels came off, the kids realized just how misleading the dreamy sales pitch had been. The good life, it turns out, is expensive.
Tom Greene:Crushingly so. The rewards they dreamed of no longer match the effort required to receive them. And here's the cruel irony. After a lifetime of affluence, having to struggle for the basics after college seems unfair. It's one thing to climb a mountain you are warned about.
Tom Greene:It's quite another to discover the mountain after being told the road ahead would be smooth. Which raises an important question. Is everything really unaffordable today or are the expectations just unrealistic? It's extraordinarily hard to go from a life of privilege and comfort to life where you have to scrape a little. This generation looks around and concludes that life was easier for everyone else, but it wasn't.
Tom Greene:Post college life has always been an adjustment. Smaller living spaces, more roommates, and less disposable income. Reality really sinks in. How many parents explain that the study abroad program at Cortona would take the kids fifteen to twenty years to pay off? The very advantages meant to launch people into a successful adulthood have instead made them unprepared for the friction of a normal life.
Tom Greene:Previous generations learned resilience by working in a local fast food restaurant or dry cleaners after school. They learned humility from starting at the bottom. They learned that work, especially at the beginning, involves maximum effort for minimal reward. It's extraordinarily hard to go from a life of privilege and comfort to a life where you have to scrape a little. Their parents worked hard to provide a comfortable home, annual vacations, and safe SUVs for soccer tournaments.
Tom Greene:They achieved the good life with years of hard work, grit, and thick skin. Things that kids never noticed in between travel soccer and studying abroad in Cortona. The result is a generation meticulously prepared for entering college, but totally unprepared for exiting college. Unprepared for an ordinary life, as if the college admissions officials were the gatekeepers to a 6 figure salary and immediate promotions. They weren't.
Tom Greene:When you grow up living the good life, an ordinary life feels unfair. A fixer upper isn't a starting point, it's failure. A higher mileage used car isn't practical, it's embarrassing. And an entry level salary isn't a beginning, it's a disappointment. That's the insidious power of affluence.
Tom Greene:It redefines abundance as the bare minimum and anything else as inadequate. The very advantages meant to launch young people into successful adulthood have instead made them unprepared for the realities of life and maybe ungrateful for those blessings that come their way. Imagine growing up with granite countertops, attending private schools with Olympic sized swimming pools, spending summers abroad, and then graduating into a reality where you're sharing a cramped apartment with three roommates and wondering if the dream was really just a nightmare. It's not that this generation is lazy, it's that their expectations were completely unrealistic. When your identity is built around achievement and you've been told achievement guarantees success, falling short of your parents' lifestyle feels like failure.
Tom Greene:When your parents are living the good life, an ordinary life feels like deprivation. And social media only sharpens the knife. Everyone else appears to be getting promoted, traveling abroad, marrying and buying homes. Even if it's all propped up by debt or quiet parental support. But there is good news.
Tom Greene:Friction in life isn't the enemy. It's the catalyst. It's rocket fuel for success. That friction is leading young adults to ask better questions about what actually constitutes a good life. A meaningful life was never about accumulating symbols of status.
Tom Greene:A meaningful life comes from faith, family, friendship, and work that serves others. That kind of wisdom typically takes fifty years to develop. Maybe the steepening of the happiness curve is just a recalibration. Fewer car purchases may signal a growing appreciation for the crippling impact of debt. Delaying home purchases may allow for more mobility, and learning to scrape a little is good for the soul.
Tom Greene:There's always wisdom in the struggle. The challenge for these kids is in surviving the transition. This generation needs time and grace to grieve the unrealistic future they anticipated. They need to define success differently. To measure wealth and relationships instead of trappings.
Tom Greene:In meaning, rather than material accumulation, and in the realization that happiness isn't found in Cortona or in granite countertops. Wit and Wisdom is a free weekly podcast for people who are curious about the world. If you learned something today or if this podcast challenged you or it made you think differently about the world, how about sharing it with a few people you care about? Maybe you too can have your own honest conversation about the things that really matter. So thanks again for tuning in.
Tom Greene:I hope you'll come back next week for another episode of Wit and Wisdom. And in the meantime, always remember, nothing beats nice.