▶ Your Answer :
When I recollect my childhood, I used to think that troubles which I faced were the most difficult and insurmountable things in the world, and they were not comparable to those faced by parents' generations. However, I, right now as an adult, think differently, believing that that was the false assumption. We cannot compare two kinds of difficulties faced by each generation at the same standard.
The reason why young people fall into the trap of thinking that their difficulties are greater than previous generations is that it is the first time for the youth to face those troubles. They are, generally speaking, lack of knowledge and experience. Thus what they face even though it turns out to be small in the future appears to be very big and hard. For example, young children think that their generation is unlucky because they have to learn a lot of new scientific things, which are complicated and hard to understand. As the older people did not learn those things, the youth tend to assume that their school workloads are far heavier than those of the previous generations. However, we should not forget that at the moment when the older generations attended school, they were also taught numerous new knowledge and experience, which were never easy and simple to the generation. Every young generation seems to regard their generation as the most unlucky and unhappy one. However, in the respective that all generations have faced similar situation through their life, I do not think like that.
As times pass by, we do realize the fact that all troubles and difficulties which they had faced in the youth period are just one specific period of life cycle. That is, it is only a part of long life path. Although the youth consider their agony as most difficult and insurmountable, when we are getting more experience and knowledge, we find out that the assumption was wrong. Because we, at that time, were of little mature to think deeply and widely, we wrongly condemned ourselves as the miserable generation compared to previous one.
According to a study conduced by Harvard Psychology team, all human beings have a tendency to think problems they faced whey they were young as bigger and more difficult. For example, the research team presented children some math questions and after 10 years later, children are taught to rate the difficulty level of the same questions as if they were young. Surprisingly, even though they are primed to think their mathematics problems as if they were young, they rates the problems far easier than when they were young. This is a good example of the argument that with the help of time and maturity, people become aware of the false assumption they made in the young age.
Thus, it is better for younger generation not to condemn themselves as the unlucky people who face the most difficulties throughout human history. In addition, it is also better for older generation to understand the younger generation's characters and advise them not to fall into the trap of false assumption. By doing so, both generations can make the society a better livable place. | |