January 10, 2014--Que Sera, Sera

This insightful piece is from guest blogger Sharon M-L:

As a new year began, I found myself contemplating what to do with the months and years ahead.

A few lines from an opinion piece in the New York Times, "Anxious Youth, Then and Now," suggests why for me and other baby boomers this might be easier said than done.

After drawing parallels between the challenges faced by the children of the Industrial Revolution and currently by Millennials whose plight includes "unstable careers, the confusion of technologies, [and] delayed romance, parenthood and maturity," the author writes:

Today’s young adults are constantly rebuked for not following the life cycle popular in 1960. But a quick look at earlier eras shows just how unusual mid-20th-century young people were. A society in which people married out of high school and held the same job for 50 years is the historical outlier. Some of that era’s achievements were enviable, but they were not the norm.

Born in the 50s, my frame of reference was study hard, get good grades, go to college, get a good job (initially only in those approved professions for young women), marry, have children, become grandparents, and then await death.

This was reinforced by the first two popular songs I picked-up, "Love and Marriage" sung by Frank Sinatra in a mid-fifties television production of Thorton Wilder's Our Town, and at about the same time, "Que Sera, Sera," introduced by Doris Day in Hitchcock's, The Man Who Knew Too Much.

While the social changes of the second half of the 20th century made the lyrics of "Love and Marriage" as outdated as the horse and carriage, the fatalistic roadmap for life expressed in "Que Sera, Sera" (“whatever will be, will be”) reinforced by my parents worldview persists.

Having skipped the children and grandchildren stages and with an unplanned early exit from my career thrown in for good measure, I'm starting to think I should have heeded a graduation speaker who advised what to do to avoid life becoming "a straight run to the grave."

We all had plenty of warning that we'd have to be more flexible and have a plan to thrive in the future. An article in the early 90s talked about “portfolio people,” noting in the near future we would have to be prepared, not only for multiple jobs, but for multiple careers.

I do not see many of my contemporaries planning for the type of retirements held up as the ideal for our parents' generation. Actually one friend talks about the "big buyout" and fully expects us to be encouraged to get out of the way--permanently. His vision: a future government program, perhaps linked to Medicare, which when you've had enough (or cost too much) would provide an option (a pill perhaps?) to end it all quickly in return for a payment to your heirs.

In spite of my best efforts to try to make a plan, when I think of my friend's version of the future, l find myself not wanting to think about the next chapter at all, and instead find myself humming Que Sera, Sera.

For the entire opinion piece, see:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/01/opinion/anxious-youth-then-and-now.html?_r=0