Jump to content

Regarding today's youth as it relates to school...


Coytee

Recommended Posts

What guarantee do we have that we will live until retirement? Burdening oneself during the journey guarantees that most of ones life will be wasted chasing a time in their life that they may never achieve.

 

All the more reason to try to retire early.  My goal is to retire about 20 years earlier than the norm.  That's a long time.

.

post-3284-0-13160000-1430326422_thumb.jp

Link to comment
Share on other sites

the only thing they can ever talk about is their job, their work, their money, their next quest.

 

As to narcissists, I don't know any.

 

Sounds like you knew several.  

 

 

Perhaps you should look at other definitions of the term:

 

"extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one's own talents and a craving for admiration, as characterizing a personality type."

 

the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one's own attributes"

 

"a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration"

 

"Four dimensions of narcissism as a personality variable have been delineated: leadership/authority, superiority/arrogance, self-absorption/self-admiration, and exploitativeness/entitlement"

 

 

in terms of traits:

  • An obvious self-focus in interpersonal exchanges
  • Pretending to be more important than they really are
  • Bragging (subtly but persistently) and exaggerating their achievements
Edited by MetropolisLakeOutfitters
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've stayed generally quiet on this issue, and will continue for the most part to do so. However, my feelings are that there's too much copy and pasting of education these days. The most infuriating thing is that most of these administrators on school boards tend to think of a child as a product instead of a person. They're numbers, just like in retail. It's all numbers. They could care less of the QUALITY they're producing and more interested in the QUANTITY. The result is that education suffers.

The other issue is that many of the issues start at home. There's no accountability anymore, it's always the teacher's fault. It's never the parents, never the curriculum, and never the administration that shoots that garbage down the line. The blame is typically ill placed. Students aren't taught respect at home, they aren't given the guidance they need (for the most part, I know most of you here aren't like this), then they go to school and talk and talk and talk and talk - that's all they do with their noses in their phones.

And we wonder WHY they have no common sense or intellect that we can see. There's nothing to be seen there.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm really only talking about people who spend all their energy on getting ahead in their careers and jobs. Ambition is not narcissism. That's why we have different words.

 

Right, but what's the first thing you thought of when asked about why ambition is a problem?  Your coworkers, who talk about themselves non-stop.  Ambition isn't what's the problem there.  

 

The most ambitious people I know rarely if ever talk about themselves or their accomplishments.  Typically, if you actually are good at what you do, it speaks for itself, plus most are smart enough to know that it is highly annoying to everybody else and is counterproductive in general.  A real leader praises others, not himself.  Entrepreneur magazine even had a short article that is halfway related to this recently:

 

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245233

 

Basically, Pollyanna from Utopia is an annoying brat who is hardly representative of ambitious people in general.  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've stayed generally quiet on this issue, and will continue for the most part to do so. However, my feelings are that there's too much copy and pasting of education these days. The most infuriating thing is that most of these administrators on school boards tend to think of a child as a product instead of a person. They're numbers, just like in retail. It's all numbers. They could care less of the QUALITY they're producing and more interested in the QUANTITY. The result is that education suffers.

 

Something actually shocked me recently.  My aforementioned sister lost her job last year and had to start teaching in a different county.  Reason being, they were cutting back on extras to make budget.  Apparently special ed teacher salaries was one of the first things on the chopping block.  In the meantime, the superintendent who made this decision makes I believe $180,000 a year, in a rural county with about 400-500 kids in the high school.  Makes no sense.  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

they go to school and talk and talk and talk and talk - that's all they do with their noses in their phones.

 

As a parent who had a child graduate high school last year, I was also shocked upon the realization of how much cell phone use is going on at school and in the middle of the night.  I got to see detailed bills, couldn't believe it.  Apparently such activity is the norm nowadays.  

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

 

I'm really only talking about people who spend all their energy on getting ahead in their careers and jobs. Ambition is not narcissism. That's why we have different words.

 

Right, but what's the first thing you thought of when asked about why ambition is a problem?  Your coworkers, who talk about themselves non-stop.  Ambition isn't what's the problem there.  

 

The most ambitious people I know rarely if ever talk about themselves or their accomplishments.  Typically, if you actually are good at what you do, it speaks for itself, plus most are smart enough to know that it is highly annoying to everybody else and is counterproductive in general.  A real leader praises others, not himself.  Entrepreneur magazine even had a short article that is halfway related to this recently:

 

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245233

 

Basically, Pollyanna from Utopia is an annoying brat who is hardly representative of ambitious people in general.  

 

 

 

I also have remained silent throughout most of this thread.  Competition is extremely tough in our little community.  I have sewn custom designed clothing for almost forty years. We have been monogramming/embroidering for almost eight years.  We added vinyl design, including tshirts, glass etching, signs and a few other miscellaneous products to our line up in late November. We do not advertise in any form.  People know we do excellent work and they find us.  Our sales have tripled in the past two years, solely by word of mouth....not because we "self promote", but because others promote us.  Dtel and I have always been very low key, non assuming individuals.   This practice has served us well, throughout thirty plus years of self employment in various fields.  

 

There is nothing more annoying than someone that is constantly "ringing their own bell" and "singing their own praises"....I run away from people like that.  

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

 

they go to school and talk and talk and talk and talk - that's all they do with their noses in their phones.

 

As a parent who had a child graduate high school last year, I was also shocked upon the realization of how much cell phone use is going on at school and in the middle of the night.  I got to see detailed bills, couldn't believe it.  Apparently such activity is the norm nowadays.  

 

 

 

This problem has reached epidemic proportions.  We have three daughters.  One of them has a daughter that is twelve years old....she refuses to get her daughter a cell phone.  I am proud that she stands firmly on that issue.  

 

The second daughter has two daughters, one of which is thirteen.  She has a cell phone.  There are times that I find my grand daughter online at 2 and 3 in the morning.  Even though I have spoken to her mom about the situation, she is still online at all hours of the morning.  While this may be considered the norm....I find it entirely out of the norm.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

We have a "no texting after 10 pm" rule.  It used to be 9 pm but for all the homework related stuff I let it slide.  You really need to have hours that they just can't be turned on.  Maybe they need to leave them in a common area for overnight charging and not have them in their room.   I remind them that ALL the cell phones belong to me and I will feel free to collect them any time I choose.  A smartphone is a useful tool but things can get out of hand quickly... for people of all ages.  

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The inevitable future of cell phone technology?

 

tbchigh.jpg

 

"A bitter jest, when it comes too near the truth, leaves a sharp sting behind it."  Tacitus

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Never once did I say people "talk about themselves non-stop."

the only thing they can ever talk about is their job, their work, their money, their next quest.

I'm just drunk, nevermind me.

I actually know the type, my dad is super bad about this. Last job he had, he did exactly what you said, worked 60 hours, commuted 2 hours each day on top of that. Get around him and he WOULD. NOT. SHUT. UP. about his job. The strange thing is though, he got into not one but two bad wrecks and went on disability. 3 years after having never went back to work, he still did the exact same thing, wanted to talk about work and what he accomplished. That's not ambition.

Edited by MetropolisLakeOutfitters
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another interesting short article on education, although not high school:

http://fortune.com/2015/04/27/tien-tzuo-starting-your-own-business/?xid=entrepreneur

More and more people are saying this, that MBA's are worthless. Interesting. I almost went back for one until I realized I'd have to take business calculus. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This problem has reached epidemic proportions.  We have three daughters.  One of them has a daughter that is twelve years old....she refuses to get her daughter a cell phone.  I am proud that she stands firmly on that issue.  

 

The second daughter has two daughters, one of which is thirteen.  She has a cell phone.  There are times that I find my grand daughter online at 2 and 3 in the morning.  Even though I have spoken to her mom about the situation, she is still online at all hours of the morning.  While this may be considered the norm....I find it entirely out of the norm.

I had somewhat of a scare, found somebody texting my daughter from New Jersey to Kentucky at 4 AM. Come to find out some kid in the next town over set up some kind of online relay and was texting through his computer. Whaaaat? So some punk playing call of duty all night can send messages to my daughter's phone... without even having a phone that can be traced? Jeez I'm getting old. Get off my lawn, or something.

Edited by MetropolisLakeOutfitters
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ambition can be a great thing!  How about the engineer who later became a surgeon and invented multiple surgical devices and tools?  He certainly didn't do that on a 40 hour work week.  I don't know how happy he was but perhaps happiness is overrated...  if you are benefiting others isn't that a good thing and don't we want more of it?  Of course you can argue "good" for one person might not be for another but I'm going to make the assumption that improved health care is a good thing.  

 

A lot of technology might not seem all that valuable and merely toys or tools for profit.  Certainly the Internet is an example that can extend to all extremes of worthless (to me) to very worthwhile.  How far has telemedicine come and how far can it go to deliver quality care across the world and at lower cost?  We need and depend on a good supply of ambitious people. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ambition means different things to different people as well. To me it means working smarter and trying to get to where you can leverage your assets as to maximize profits in order to maximize your time elsewhere. That's what interests me. Climbing a corporate ladder, having bragging rights for being part of a project, none of that really interests me anymore.

However, making several thousand bucks a week based on work that might have totalled 2-3 hours total like what happened last week? MUCH more interesting to me. Everybody else can pat themselves on the back for being smart or holding a certain position or for having worked 60 hours in a week, I don't care, that's all you. Call such actions whatever you wish. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Ecclesiastes 9:11 "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all."

Wise old Solomon. He knew. Yet he was an example of how by chance (being born the son of a king) "riches" go to "men of understanding." Very rarely, as we know and he knew. Some scholars have dubbed Solomon as an early theistic existentialist.

That's far and away the most interesting thing I've ever heard about Solomon. Can you explain further?

 

I’ll try to make this brief. 

 

It has been argued repeatedly that Solomon was a theistic existentialist.  I don’t remember where I first read it, but it may have been in The Existential Imagination, a book I have lost.

 

Existentialism exists (no pun intended) in many forms, including atheistic, deistic, and theistic, as well as on the part of existentialists who don’t  go there.  Since existentialism is an umbrella over differing views, there is disagreement as to who was and who was not.  Was Kierkegaard  an existentialist, or just a forerunner?  How about Solomon, who was writing about  2,760 years before?  Perhaps he was correct in saying, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

According to the Old Testament, Solomon was a theist, a believer in a personal God.   Ecclesiastes is a typically existential encounter with perceived meaningless.   But it also contains a return from despair.  Solomon cites the rhythms of nature (and the like) as providing meaning, and, famously, “To everything there is a season.” 

 

“Emptiness, emptiness … all is empty …. I have seen all the deeds that are done … they are all emptiness and chasing the wind …I have applied my mind to understand wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly, and … this too is chasing the wind.  For in much wisdom is much vexation, and the more a man knows, the more he has to suffer.” 

 

It’s probably no accident that many movie and novel titles are quotes from Solomon … The Earth Abides … He that disturbs his own house shall Inherit the WindThe Sun Also Rises, etc.

 

If I was forced to put the central controlling idea of Ecclesiastes into a few words, they might be, “Love God, and go with the flow.”

 

I cannot vouch for this linc, but it came up on Google:

 

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-existential-philosophy-behind-the-wisdom-of-king-solomon

Edited by garyrc
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 The Earth Abides

 

 

The Dude abides.   ;)  

 

I've read Ecclesiastes probably two dozen times, and more if you count bits and pieces.  I tend to view it as him facing depression to some extent, and talking himself out of it I guess.  

Edited by MetropolisLakeOutfitters
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...