Unorthodox Advice to American Youths
Madconomist has a pretty lengthy advice article explaining at length why American youths should think twice about the current education/career system in place and it’s a really thought provoking read. Certainly, there’s plenty to disagree with and perhaps more than a few radical ideas and recommendations, but there’s also some really good stuff. Advice on keeping your head above water in potentially turbulent times, on higher education, and learning skills and crafts, and on bettering yourself as a person — not to improve the ego, but to make yourself more capable of shifting and adjusting with the times. Very much worth the read, regardless of whether or not you have the time.
Quite Possibly, The Most Unorthodox Piece Of Advice Ever Given To The American Youths.
Comments
That article just further fueled the fire that is burning inside of me to quit my job and simplify my life Into the Wild style. I’ll never have the balls to do it though.
And thus we have a three-tier generationally stratified middle-class society. At the top, we have a whole lot of happy, prosperous, self-assured old people, living it large, not willing for a moment to admit their complicity in impoverishing their children and grandchildren. In the middle we have a smaller number of their adult children, running themselves ragged, forced to delude themselves that everything is under control, just to keep up their spirits. And then there are even fewer young people like Steve, just coming of age, and, one would think, justifiably angry with the hand they have been dealt. Few of them are up to the Herculean task that has been set in front of them.
It would seem that the author is saying the last category is for the 18-year-olds. But at 24, I still feel as though I’m partially in this group too.
Waa Waa Waa!
I can’t tell if Kevin’s “Waa Waa Waa!” was meant to be read as the sound of baby crying, or a deflating, descending horn sound like in the movies/tv when someone is delivered some dissapointing news. Either way works, which is the beauty of it.
As for the subject itself, it really does suck. When I think about the fact that my grandfather’s didn’t even have high school educations, one worked as a coal miner the other pouring asphalt and yet they were both able to own homes and raise kids in a safe, suburban middle class existence it blows my mind because it’s absolutely hard enough for people with college educations and comparatively high paying jobs to do so. The problem is equal parts the economics of it and the virtually nonexistent to dissapearing middle class, but also the incessant rush to “keep up with the joneses” and live a cookie cutter existence.
its a baby cry
YOU’RE a baby cry.
also the guy says to get a bunch of trade jobs, change them every year to stay sharp, then move out and go to college. Steves gonna be an old man by the time he moves out.
Plus, how skilled are you going to get in a year on a trade job? Not enough to be able to make a good living at it since most trade jobs require some sort of reputation. I think more important than learning a trade is to get jobs where you have to sweat and work your ass off and that are in no way pleasant not only because when you finally get an office job you’ll appreciate how easy you have it, but if you do fall on hard times you’ll always know you have what it takes to do what you need to in order to keep the money coming in and the lights on. Having to work as a janitor in a factory after I graduated college, where I was subjected to guys saying “Hey, college boy…we’re out of toilet paper in the men’s room…can we borrow your diploma? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA” on a daily basis was pretty much a better life lesson than anything I got in college.