Capitalism encourages us to be lazy ? Then let's change our society ideology.

Help the others!  Care about their interests! Care about the minorities and the older people! This is what society ask us and encourage the youth to do. Paradoxically, Western society, based on the capitalism ideology, encourages us to follow the individualist ideology, which is to care only about your personal goods and interests.  It commends us that it’s important to study fervently our whole youth, quickly find a professional domain, rush into its direction to earn money, build a family, get married with our childhood friend, keep in touch with a couple of friends and work, work and work our whole life to rest peacefully with the money we earned to get a wealthy retirement. 
 We grow learning to fix our energy on our abilities and on our personal interests, but what do we learn about the common good? «Ah! Don’t care about it! Your life’s goal is to be happy and money can get you happy! » said capitalism. And now, society evolved and now complains on younger people that they don’t get involved in community service! Can you see the little pattern here?

Western youth, as for everywhere in the world, wants and needs a quest of sense, searching for a life direction. Teens follow a path to know their personal passions and interests.  However, they need to build themselves a good self-esteem; they need to be confident to pass over the «high-schools-micro-society», so they can grow into confident adults. To be confident, they have to fulfill a need of comfort and security: this is the reason why they conform to popular values, to be a member of the society mould. It is when you get maturity (like in college) that you truly discover yourself and your real values and that you open your mind, open yourself to the world. As we grow, our head is getting, step by step, out of our ass. We stop caring about our belly and we we want to change the world to create a free, egalitarian and peaceful world, but it is too late? No! This is why open-minded adults are interested in involving in community services.  When we’re young, we devote our time and energy in studying and finding money. We only want to help others if we can get some cash… In my opinion, this is the main reason why volunteering in our community isn’t popular for people of my generation.

The average western teen’s dream is to establish him quickly into the capitalism mould so that he can be financially secured and live a «good» life, which is based on earning money.   I understand that money can sometimes lead to happiness, but too many people are mistaken and confound these two ideas into one and only ultimate goal.  According to Matt Gurney from the National Post:  «Average earnings 10-years after high school graduation: $31,648. Home ownership for that age group: roughly 40%¹». It seems that the capitalist dream is harder to realize than to think about it. M. Gurney also says:  «Personal debt remained a serious issue for many, including tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, and thousands more on credit cards»². It is then understandable that people of my generation have other problems to solve before solving problem from unknowns… It’s a way to see it, which isn’t actually mine.

In facts, we need to get interested in others, in their ways to think that may be different from ours, this is the point. This is the way we learn and we open our mind. It can be by studying humanities, by travelling from across the world and by meeting with new people, who are opened-minded themselves.

Society definitely needs to continue promoting both volunteering and service learning. I see advantages in these two ways of getting involved in our community. One is more global (helping whoever is in needs) and the other one is more specific towards a field of study. I’m not shy to blame capitalism for youth laziness, but I’m not totally into the socialist direction or ideology. I just think that the more we help each other, getting interested with other’s interests, the more we will build a free, egalitarian and peaceful society. Maybe these are only the reveries of a solitary walker, but I feel like it is our life adventure.

Sources :

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/10/15/matt-gurney-hate-millennials-blame-boomers/