The Last Wish For Youth

I watched "The Last Emperor" in the past week, a quality film depicting the life Pu Yi, the final emperor of China. It served as a crucial tool in my own education, reinforcing what I learned in my Chinese Revolutionary History class. I also found it helpful that I had thoroughly explored one of the major set pieces, namely the Forbidden City (pictured right), the film being the first to record within the Beijing walls.

Photo Credit: Noah Yaffe

I don't think it spoils the movie to say that he is brought up as an emperor and eventually dies a peasant; it's historical fact. Then again, a Chinese citizen may not know whether Jefferson and Adams ended their lives with comradery or enmity for one another. (Do you know? It's quite the tale.)

It seems to me that this story would be a horrible ordeal to live. Rags to riches may have its tragic problems if you are sucked into a materialistic lifestyle or if you lack gratitude for those that helped you along the way. But riches to rags? It can take a toll on a mind raised on praise and fulfillment of whims.

This leads to two points.

One, we all have this challenge to some extent in the process of maturation, the growing pains of independence. 

And two, fame or finance early in life is more likely a curse than a blessing, whether the good fortune lingers or disappears.

In growing up, we leave the familiar ways of home and go off into the world. (Or, in the case of college attendance, we incubate for a while in another home.) Starting life out with the royal treatment of diaper changes and pre-chewed food (too lazy to process it ourselves), many in my generation continued on to have  disappointments and failures mitigated by parents, and responsibilities and obligations withheld. With the high standard of living in the US, it was at least a luxurious upbringing compared to the rest of the world, or our country 100 years ago. 

Regardless, at some point my generation will have to confront the reality of working and budgeting, if it hasn't happened already. I am one of the those who will soon be meeting basic independence, not yet having secured a job nor having left my parent's house. I hope to greet it with at least plastered-on smile, if initially lacking genuine goodwill.  (For the record, I only graduated a month ago and I may have a job in the next week.) 

This transition from college may be rough on a lot of college kids. I overheard a (loud) conversation between some local business owners today. They talked about their freshly graduated employees, how they are unreliable and hold wholly unrealistic salary expectations. These particular trade schools have an incentive to advertise large graduation salaries to lure in students but don't impart a well-rounded approach to business or even acceptable competence in their specific trade. 

But what these new employees lack in skill and tenacity, they reportedly make up in self-esteem. I am curious how long self-esteem will hold up against unemployment and/or student debt. (Maybe businesses will start giving out 'participation trophies' just for interviewing.) We will all adjust, but many of us have more growing up to do.We are finally learning that college isn't reality and the 'real world' doesn't often yield to our college dreams.

But this, I believe, is a blessing in disguise.

One only has to look at the world of celebrities to find profound tragedy of premature fortune. From the emperors of ancient Rome to the respective Kings of pop and rock and roll. While this certainly isn't the fate of the average college graduate, it serves as an example of empty fame and the difficulty one has living up to expectations set by one's past-self.

If our college education doesn't prepare us, we will have to start working minimum wage, a guarantee that pre-mature fame and finance will not find us, and subsequently will not wreak havoc on our psyche in later years. If we start at minimum wage, the only place to go is up!

What if you achieved fame and fortune at age twenty, lost it all by age twenty-five, and remained in financial uncertainty and social obscurity for the rest of your life? That's the last wish I have for our youth. Isn't it far better to grow up poor and obscure, build up a stable life, and then have your hard work transformed into notable success? 

At least if we enter the world unprepared by college, we will start at the bottom of the ladder. The only downside is that our labors will be a source of consternation for our employers and our egos for many years.

I, for one, would rather build slowly on achievement. I could probably find a good paying job with an economics degree, but I would rather master minimum wage work and grow from there. I will forever have the knowledge that if worst comes to worst, I can survive on minimum wage. If, in the future, I have a career that crashes and burns, I'll always have the security that I can work and be happy on the lowest salary possible. So with any luck, I'll remain obscure and poor for now.  (Then again... I hope people read this blog. Oh the conflict!) If I chance upon early success, I'll just be grateful for having my expectations exceeded.

In the end, the last emperor may have been one of the luckiest of his kin. He didn't have the curse of absolute power or palace isolation. He found independence, as difficult as it was.

Then again, he certainly lived in interesting times, the greatest curse of all.

Be Good,
Enjoy Life,
Yaffe

Future Blogs:

The expectation of business owners that youthful employees are technologically skilled.

College dreams vs. Life action