A recent poll of American young people shows a startling difference between the last generation and the one coming into the world of work, politics and religion now.
This poll was a National poll done with 18- 25 year olds. The findings are that 81% of today's youth think that their top life goal is to be "rich" and 51% want to be famous. This can be contrasted with a 1967 study of college freshmen in which 85.8% said it was essential to develop "a meaningful philosophy of life,"while 41.9% thought it essential to be "very well off financially."
Now out of this poll recently done, here are some other findings.
Among other findings:
•32% attend church at least once a week; 20%
have no religious affiliation or are atheist
or agnostic.
•48% identify more with Democrats; 35% with Republicans.
•36% have a tattoo and 30% a body piercing in a place other than an ear lobe; 25% have dyed their hair a non-traditional color.
Overall, these young adults are content with their lives and optimistic about the future:
84% say their life is excellent or good; 14% say fair or poor.
The poll was part of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions' Generation Next project. The margin of error for ages 18-25 is plus or minus 5 percentage points; for the overall
poll, plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Polls like this of course are usually drawn from a very marginal few individuals, in this case a 130, 18-25 year olds were called on their cell phones because they didn't have landlines ( that's plain old phone at home, for us old folks) and asked questions pertaining to their drinking habits, thoughts on politics all the way to religion.
I would say from the majority of not only youth in America, we could without a poll could say that most Americans think that their life's goal is to get rich and famous anymore. Our children are really just a reflection of their parents and the prevalent society they live in. Now most of the parents of these kids are in their 50's to their 60's's from the baby boom era. I am 53 years old and I would would have come close to falling in that poll of 1967. My parents who if there ever was a poll in the 50's, didn't put a lot of emphasis on money, power and fame. They were simple hard working folks that are now left to retire on Social Security, which without they would have no income at all. The odd thing is they are happy with one another and life, though they own very little. The newest generation after that would have been around college in the early 70's and if a poll was taken even then, I don't think you would find a lot of them wanting money and fame. We the 60's generation were the generation that laughed at the "system" in the 60's and thought all those over 30 were ready for the graveyard. Somewhere, in that transition of rebellion against a system that favored the rich and hated the poor, we reverted to worship of the rich and famous. I don't know what happened?
Here we were, all ready to change the world, we protested and marched, yet the world didnt get better, it grew worse and we joined in. We thought, perhaps if we couldnt beat them, then join them. I think the drugs of the 60's and the idea of tune in and drop out, played a large part in circumventing the minds of that generation. To be quite frank, it messed up my generations minds, and now we have this new generation, that doesnt care about eternal things, other more important things don't matter, the only thing that matters is just their position in life they can gain with money and power. One of the big problems for Americans is we do live longer, and with little day to day tragedy in our lives unlike so many people across the world who live in poverty and starvation, death and war, etc. We don't have a real picture of what real life is.
The other people in many nations haven't experienced what we Americans like to call "the good life". I'm not quite so sure it is all that good. For most of us, including myself, we are often deceived by this philosphy of life that the beer commercials so capitalized on, "You got to grab all the gusto, you can, you only go around once in life". The other saying that typifies our lifestyles in America is " The person with the most toys in the end wins." The question we must really dig deep and answer is, who wins? If life is only here what we know of it ( with your five senses), do we die and that's it? If so, then that philosphy carried by today's youth is correct. However, if you dig down deep and look around you, if you ever attended a funeral, can you recall any one person with a U-Haul with all their toys and stuff and money attached to them while they are being laid in the grave. I can't, even though their have been a few crazies that have, like the lady that was buried in her new Cadillac. Did they really take it with them to the beyond? Of course not! I hope we have grown up beyond the imaginations of some ancient cultures who held onto the physical so tight, like the Egyptians that were buried with their treasures for the afterlife. Is this, what we have become in America, that getting rich and famous is our whole goal for life? God forbid. It's true though, look around you, look at your own life, and I promise, you probably spend more time on accumalting things, then in investing in the greater things of life. I bet you spend little time in building relationships with your children, friends, other family or other people. Oh! you might say you love them, you might say you care for them, look at all I bought them or spent on them, or the college education I gave them. We wonder why they think this is important, we have exchanged the value of time, learning and loving one another for buying, and accumalting all those toys in the closet or in the driveway or in the garage. Where are the toys you bought yesterday, haven't they rusted, and turned to dust and now are corrupted. These things are temporal.
The life of Anna Nicole Smith left nothing but others to fight over but her wealth, that's what the baby fight is over. It isn't because these people care about babies. America proved that with the acceptance of 1.5 million abortions every year. We don't care about life, we care about what we can "get out of it". We care about "me". If there was ever a sadder time in America it is today. We have become as one of my granddaughters T-shirts said (I hate that T-shirt) the "It's All About Me" society.
We have not listened to the wisdom of the Bible, when Jesus and his prophets and others spoke of a greater day coming. It's called JUDGEMENT! "It is appointed to every man to die once, and after this the judgement". That's right, the rich will be judged, harshly, I might add. The book of James speaks this clearly. If you scoff at such an idea or teaching, then that's fine, but what if the Bible is right? What if, you expend all your days on this earth getting and end up with nothing. Even if you don't beleive in an afterlife, then all that is left for you is nothing. So, why expend your whole life working toward nothingness?
I would rather expend my life on something. That something is loving others, caring more about them than myself, believing and trusting in a living God, who loved me so much he came down and took human form in the person of Jesus Christ just to restore truth and life back to me. I would rather sacrifice the goods of this life for the good of others, so that they can have real life, a relationship of value with me as their friend, their father, grandfather, brother, uncle or whatever. I think what we are missing here is to want and desire and to make one's goal only riches and fame, one has to be blind to the fact, that he or she too will some day come to an end as well. All that he or she did or accumalated will be forgotten. "We are but dust in the wind", as the old 60's song goes taken from a quote in the Bible.
I want to be remembered for relationship, not goods owned and my riches and fame. I promise you will be forgotten and your riches will be corrupted by time eventually, if this is all you want in life. What a terrible thing to have wasted your whole life on that and that alone. When will the 80% so called "Christians" of America wake up to this, and give their children something more than things, position, power and fame as goals to live for. Regardless, how we look at it, it's our fault as parents and grandparents. We failed, we joined into "the system" and we bought it hook, line and sinker, and now we are being caught in it, like a fish pulled in. We love money in America, that's the facts, and one must remember "having" money is not wrong, it is the "love" of money that is the root of all evil. If this is the new generations goal in life, then be prepared, evil is about to grow expontentially in the coming years ahead.
Dr. J.
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