I am in fact old enough to remember:
Young people of the late 60’s (I was one of them);
Young people of the 1970’s,
Young people of the 1980’s,
Young people of the 1990’s, and on into the `millenials’
I knew hard times in each of those decades & what it felt like to be out of work, so I’m not looking back from the ivory tower of lifetime employment with one firm & assurance of secure retirement from the beginning.
That said, I can look back and see common characteristics in the un-or-underemployed young of each of those past decades:
Sense of entitlement
Belief in one’s own generational uniqueness
No sense of the past or those who once lived in it
Self absorption & desire for the latest toys
Lack of realization of the passage of time
Minimal interest in the reality of a loving G-d
I’m retired now, and every day my wife & I give humble thanks for the relative security we have. I wouldn’t want to be a young person today for all the tea in China.
I'm hoping to retire in a couple of years, but until I do, I'll find some way to keep food on the table. My friends and I agree on this: we no longer have careers, we simply transition from one job to the next until we retire or die.
"Careers" are so 20th century.
I'll still be employed doing something when I retire, but it will be in a job I like. It could be part-time tax work, working at a winery, substitute teaching, volunteering at my church, or all of the above. The thing I look forward to the most is the flexibility to leave on my terms.