Don’t put your faith in the next generation. The last generation put faith in you. Act yourself first.

It’s become fashionable, it seems, for old people to say their delight and confidence that the next generation will fix the problems we created. I see them trying to pass the buck to people who can’t speak back.

I’ve written before that they’re just saying “no me, not now, someone else, some other time.” Old people can vote, hold assets, be elected, drive, and so on. Young people can’t. Waiting for them to acquire tools of power and use them while we don’t will take too long.

We can fix the problems we created. Not wait for them. If we wait, we’ll teach them to do what old people not acting today learned—to abandon their values amid claims of practicality. They’ll claim then what old people claim today keeps them from acting—some hogwash about how you have to do things that pollute and it’s not your fault. It never is.

Didn’t your parents put their faith in you? Are you doing anything to fix today’s problems? Why expect the next generation would would?

Want motivate young people to act? Act yourself first!

Take responsibility. Yes, change takes effort, all the more so because past generations left acting to us. Do we want the next generation to handle our problems only harder for another generation having added to it.

Ozymandias

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