I work with a number of women who are ten and twenty years younger than me. They add a nice counterpoint to my life, a sweet to my salty. They keep me honest and make me laugh. They also remind me why I have a refrigerator magnet that reads, “Honey, you couldn’t pay me to be twenty again.” Some times they make me crazy, all I can do is shake my head and bite my tongue. Occasionally their lack of respect makes me want to smack them into next week. When that happens I throttle back and regroup because I know that my irritation says more about me than them.
Mostly I like their perspective of things even when you can’t tell them a dang thing. The biggest difference I see between our generations is that they aren’t fighting anything. They aren’t tilting at windmills. Women of my generation were the generation of change. We were part of the woman’s movement, the peace moment and the civil rights movement. Our generation fought for the right to be more than a stereotype. We fought for the right to chase our dreams and live life on our own terms. Some of us are still fighting.
We fight shadows on the wall with a wooden sword because it’s what we know. It’s how we define ourselves. Choose your label sister, survivor, renegade, rebel, outcast, trendsetter. They aren’t the truth of who we are. They aren’t even the truth of who we were and yet we cling to them like a child clinging to a ratty teddy for security. We fought to remove limits yet, we limit ourselves the most when we cling to labels of who we think we are or were. Consider the irony of that for a minute. How much value have we invested in being righters of wrongs and slayers of dragons?
When I sit in the stillness of now I am none of the things that I think I am or am afraid to be. I simply am, a child of God, whole and enough. There are no dragons to slay, no wrongs to be righted, no windmills to tilt at. There are no enemies.
I like the sound of that, no enemies. I am putting down my sword and turning away from windmills. I am done creating enemies so that I can be who I think I am rather than be the being that God created me to be.
Marianne Williamson wrote, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”
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Dear Watermusic,
You continue to blow my mind, lady, to use a term from our mutual younger days. It is very hard to see what is going on in the world and not want to pick up that wooden sword, yet these days I benefit more from trying to reach inside to the real me, the witness, and send out her energy to mingle with the energy of others to right the wrongs. I feel a shift coming and wonder what it will take for the younger generation to pull their earphones out and take a look around at what is happening to the world they are about to inherit. I feel as if we baby boomers have been carrying this load, this sense of responsibility for the world, for our entire adult lives and will carry it to the grave if there is no one to pick up the baton and keep going when we fall. So I sit, and meditate, and listen to uplifting messages, and pray, and refuse to not believe that I, that all of us, do make a difference.
The women I work with and I talked about this today. “Our generation is apathic.” I don’t know what to say about that. Last night, after I posted this I still wanted to sputter, “But…..” This morning, just before I woke up I ‘heard’ “The world does not rest on your shoulders.” There is still plenty to be done but I have a sense that the way it will be done needs to change. I have a part two to this that I will post next week after I have muddled through it.
This is a wonderful post, Watermusic! Thought-provoking. We women have served each other well in this lifetime and accomplished so much–righted some wrongs. Time to pass the baton. Therein lies the problem I suppose. For women (or anyone) behind us to accept that baton, they have to see the need; have a vision; hunger for justice (or something). They don’t seem hungry now, but maybe they will once we release the baton? Hope so.
Thanks, Rea. I’ve just finished part 2 which I will post Thursday. I know that it’s time to pass the baton to use your words and it’s time to redefine what it means to serve humanity. I think that’s the real issue, redefining what it means to serve and what that looks like.
Perhaps the reason the youngsters are so arrogant and lack respect stems from the fact they do not have windmills at which to tilt. They do not have things to fight – life is too steady and sure.
The building of character takes many forms and our generation did it with the sword of change. Living in those changes is making it hard to find the character builders for this next generation.
God bless, J
Our generation thinks that doing good matters. Their generation thinks that feeling good matters. I watched the self esteem movement sweep through education with dismay. It was back lash to an earlier time and it did not help. It’s intentions were good but most people know that if you want to feel good you have to do good. The proponents of the self esteem movement acted on the assumption that if you feel good you would do good, that there was a cause and effect and there’s not.
Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y and now Millenials – we’re all out there in the world and workplace and each generation is different. There are points of friction between all of them.
The pre-Boomer generation (often called The Silents) despaired about the Boomers because we didn’t have to suffer through the Depression, so they felt we didn’t have the character-building benefits from that time. Sound familiar?
Boomers, to a large extent, created the very things we’re complaining about in Gens X, Y and M. In addition to all the great things Boomers have created in and for society, we also started the trend of consumerism and the quest for more, more, more. And many Boomers didn’t demand much from their kids, preferring to shield them from the hardships Boomers felt they had – they wanted to give their kids a better, easier life and more things than they had. All that has consequences.
By no means do the post-Boomer generations have an easy ride. They face just as serious, globe and society threatening problems as previous generations. How they will go about addressing them is going to be unfamiliar, if not downright unrecognizable, to older generations because of how these younger generations operate in this highly technological world dominated by the new social media. If you think about it, they should be better able to effect changes because of the tools they have for communicating and harnessing /directing human attention and opinion.
I have often had a ”Boomer-Codger” response to these younger generations because I cannot relate to them in so many respects (e.g., so many want/expect the corner office, title and salary within the first year on the job, and don’t seem to understand they have to earn certain things). But I’ve faced the fact they will be running our governments and the world soon enough, so we better find ways to relate and work together.
Lisa, great response. I like them and work well with most of them but it takes mutual effort and respect. Again, lovely response.
Thanks for your post and great writing, which made me think!
I just got off the phone from a young woman I work with who had just finished reading this blog. She had several things to say. She wanted to know if she had been disrespectful, she hadn’t. She said, “If no one has ever said thank you for what you’ve done, let be me. Thank you. I know what your generation has done and I’m benefiting from it.”
Now, that did my heart good and made me teary eyed but it also made me wonder why it matters that I’m respected by her or anyone else. Have I decided to just rest on my laurels? Am I going to think that what I’ve done is enough to make up for what I’m not doing now? Am I doing enough now? Am I being the best me I can be or have I given up and let go? Have I become an old codger?
I wrote this blog about not fighting battles anymore but what people talk to me about it is the generational aspect. Read Lisa’s response, she sums is up beautiful.
thanks, watermusic, for your post, it did make me think…if I’m not in codgerland yet, I certainly feel that I am, at 56. I too worked with a few young people who I thought had absolutely zero respect for pretty much anyone…it’s like the bumper sticker I see around town “It’s all about ME”…how sad. Yet, we did raise the generation, didn’t we?
I guess in the end each generation has it’s “windmills”…but you’re absolutely right about one thing, I’m DONE tilting at them too. I don’t know how many years I have left on this planet, but I feel as though I’ve done my part, BTDT so to speak, and now as I prepare to retire I’m going to let go in ways I never have before. Not everyone will like it, and it will be new territory to me too but change is good too. I only have this life.
Watermusic,
You are truly amazing…and have a refreshing insidght into life. I still think you should be writing books, giving lectures.
I work from home, but I do see the generational difference. Some of the editors I work with are really young, full of life and purpose…but very self-centered, very driven by their own careers and their own opinions. They seem in such hurry, wanting everything TODAY! Most of them have no concept of the fact that we ALL have to pay our dues. Things are not given just because, earning respect, experience…anything, takes time and effort. Instant gratification…..the order of the day.
While is true that each generation professes not to understand the next, this time around I think this is truer than ever. I remember when the schools changed their way of approaching education. There were no “last places”, egos started to be more important than achievement. Everyone was the same, everyone had to be picked for th team, everyone had to have a prize for their efforts. As this generation grew up, they expected that the world was going to be the same, when it wasn’t they became impatient and forced the issue…….Still, the world has not changed. So many problems are the same or have become worse. All the technology they have at their disposal only highlights these facts. Let’s hope they find a way to change things that need changing and keep what still works….they are indeed the future that is already here!