There’s a large part of our online media and even traditional media celebrating achievements of youths. The other ideas of ‘strawberry generation’ and the apathy of youths have recently been fading away as the world situation made things more difficult for the millennial generation. It’s important that we recognise the youths who are making a difference and shaping the future that we all want to live in.
One of the challenge with blarring about our 40 below 40 or 30 below 30, and other lists consisting of well-accomplished youths is that we create this sense of despair in other youths. We end up discouraging the ones who have tried and failed or achieved less at the same age. This further reinforces ageism – discrimination of older workers.
We need to think of better ways to celebrate our youths while encouraging others to move forward and continue shaping the future that we all care about. Our youths recognises that we are all one people and there is no inter-generational warfare going on. But they should also see that there is no hurry for those who had more obstacles in life to go through. Life is not that short, pacing things out helps.