Sorry but you’re going to have to work for it.

I read the article from the Guardian on the train this morning and my heart sank. It claims “shows such as Big Brother and The Apprentice have impaired the confidence of a generation of British youngsters”.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/aug/05/reality-tv-harming-youngsters-confidence?INTCMP=SRCH

While I mainly agree with the article, I think this is one of many symptoms of our society today. In the past 10 years there has been a major cultural shift towards having everything now, without waiting. While they are not individually repsonsible, mobile phones, credit cards, loans and more lately due to social networking, the Internet, allow us to do things immediately, and we’ve become used to the idea of not having to wait for things. It also has the side effect of allowing people to bypass the responsibility of having to work for things, whether it’s money, or fame.

I can understand the role model argument to a degree, let’s say they see someone on reality TV, if they rate them as a peer or role model, then they’ll aspire to be the same,and possibly wonder why they can’t do the same things. However it works in reverse too, if they loathe the person, they’re likely to think they’re better and would be far less of a fool, and think if they can do it why can’t I. The person isn’t a role model, but they can potentially inspire stronger desires than a role model, to pursue the same goals.

It could be so easy to cite the impatient “everything now” culture as the root cause of problem. I don’t think it necessarily is. I remember leaving college nearly 15 years ago, and being advised of the kind of job I could expect, and the salary that went with it. In my naiveity I believed it, and I recall stunning a job centre employee when arranging to sign on, by telling them what kind of salary I was looking for. They said they didn’t think I would get a job offering that much, they also told me they didn’t really get any of the kind of jobs I was looking for either. When I eventually did get a job the salary was about 3-4K lower than I’d been looking for, and it wasn’t exactly the kind of work I wanted, but I took that job and slowly worked my way up the career ladder, into the kind of job I wanted.

I want to be the hero in a black and white film, going over to give my companion a hefty slap across the chops to bring them out of hysterial madness they’ve wandered into. The people in that group surveyed need that kind of wake up call. They need to learn they can’t have everything now, they will have to dig through the shit to get to the gold. There are no shortcuts. I am deeply concerned that far too many people no longer want to work hard for things in their lives, whether it be work, relationships or even fame, they all mistakenly think they deserve these things. It sounds trite but anything worth having, is worth working for and that is something that people either aren’t learning or they’re choosing to ignore. It makes my heart sink.