If I were to ask the cartoon of Einstein intimidatingly sitting on the wall of our Physics classroom about the complications of passing time, I would get a non comprehensive description of something called ‘time dilation’ which even as a Physics student I have never been able to understand.
Time, as I am told, is the one objective truth but because it is unidirectional and dynamic we find in ourselves the immense desire to outrun and control it. With the alarming pace at which technology– and with it capitalism– continues to grow, so does the relative deficiency of time.
Our malleable minds have been programmed to be highly ambitious and competitive by the compelling forces of capitalism wherein money is a direct measure of success. Being good at something simply isn’t enough anymore. You need to be the best at it. The more you can earn, the more you are worth to society and one can never start too early. That, coupled with the false notion that time spent working towards one’s goals directly equates to success, sets the perfect background for a meritocratic mindset in the youth. This leads to a desire to spend every waking hour working towards highly ambitious goals in order to satisfy cravings of academic and workplace validation. Although working hard is necessary to meet any goal, this ambition can lead to dangerous obsession. The insatiable hunger for productivity manifests itself in different forms– basing self worth on accreditation and achievements, sabotaging relationships, diminishing boundaries between student life and personal life and the ubiquitous pressure to always keep working.
The alarming rates of competency at the entry level for most prestigious universities is a definitive indicator of rise in ambition in the youth. At a young age, many teenagers around us have started obtaining a steady source of income through social media or various business endeavors. What makes it bad for our generation is that this culture of earning money early into your teen years is becoming mainstream, setting the benchmark for success higher than ever. We are losing our youth in hopes of an unachievable and meaningless representation of ‘success’.
Instead of drowning in an unhealthy number of hours of productivity in search of the promised neverland that is perfection, it would be worthwhile to savor our youth while it lasts.
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