Recently an item appeared in Huffington Post title "Why Generation Y Yuppies are Unhappy" defining generation y as those born between the late seventies and mid nineties. The gist of the article is the young people in that age group have unrealistic expectations about their career prospects and thus are doomed to unhappiness. It's a complicated issue and one that goes back beyoned generation y. In fact, by the late eighties young people were being advised "Don't look for a career, look for a job." Things have only gotten worse since then with the term "career" becoming obsolete. Forget about working for the same company all your life you probably won't work in the same field. It's no longer uncommon to change jobs several times in one year.
The problem goes back to the 1980's when Americans began to confuse optimism with fecklessness. The generation that came of age were convinced they were going to get rich by playing the stock market or flipping real estate. Most of them didn't of course; everybody can't get rich just as everybody can't be a movie star. They also filled their kids with all kinds of "follow your bliss" malarkey that left unprepared for the harsh truths of the real world.
I'm really bothered when people say "anything is possible" because in fact lots of things are impossible; squaring the circle for one or building a perpetual motion machine. A generation that grew up hearing nonsense like "find your passion" "follow your dreams" are now confronting a reality in which their best prosepect is working at a big box store. Yes, that's right, you've been lied to but the failure of the earlier generations has become a recurring theme in the modern world. Might as well smell the coffee.
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