Narcissim and Generation Debt
I’ve currently in the middle of Anya Kamenetz’s book Generation Debt, and while I’ll get to a larger discussion of what I think of the book and what it says later, there was something in it that caught my eye and tied into my early post on narcissism. On page 93, Anya is waxing on about the motivational troubles that our generation sometimes seems to have.
We were raised to dream big. When we face real challenges, our chronic dissatisfaction can itself be a stumbling block. We spend too much time and borrow too much money shooting for the stars.
It is a different take on the issue than the authors of the study took and it is one that does hold more concern for worry. Our generation is different in a lot of ways. We are the first generation that has been raised with technology. When I was 6 years old, I started using personal computers at home learning on my dad’s IBM XT. The first five years of my life were the only times when I was not fully enmeshed in a technologically connected world.
One of the largest things that this has done is that it has drastically shrunk the difficulty involved in sending work overseas. Everyone has, most likely, had to deal with an Indian technical support call-center at some point in the last few years. That is just one of the most visible facets of out-sourcing. And the truth about out-sourcing is that it is barely working right now. Cultural differences are too great, language barriers are still fairly high, there are significant obstacles. But that is all going to change. The financial implications are just too great for it to not be successful.
What is being seen right now if the just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the global spread of business and jobs. And that brings me back to the part about my generation here in America. There is no precedent for this. Consider that someone graduating from a four-year college in the early 1980’s was most likely going to walk into a job that would pay them reasonable well, probably had health care and some sort of retirement, and which could potentially last them a life time. Consider that those facts gets more and more true as you travel back through the 60’s and 70’s to when our parents were graduating. The future that we were brought up to live in is not the future that we actually live in.
The paradigms have shifted, now, where the important thing is not necessarily the college degree, but the ability that an individual has to hone their skills and then market them in a rapidly changing environment. Interestingly enough, I think that being narcissistic may help here as well. Anya mentions that we’re spending too much time and money creating churn, and that is probably true right now. Any new situation requires some reorientation. Adapting to the new economic climes is going to be rough, but in the end, a strong sense of self and the belief that you have vital skills is going to be key. If you can’t tell yourself that you’re a special person, then no employer is going to take a chance on you either.