In this era, we live in the society that stand a huge gap between generation x and z. While there is no doubt regarding culture and lifestyle difference between the two generation, there is a problem that many societies do not acknowledge.
Many believe that seniors are out of touch, irrelevant, old fashioned or ignorant. Nothing could be further from the truth. Seniors of all walks of life have wisdom gained simply from the number of days they have lived on the earth. And then, they started to share their wisdom to the younger people as if they always know the best and believe that they have more experience than younger one.
Hence, we conducted a survey to 100 participants in which there were 50 of generation z, and 50 of generation x, hoping to solve the issue and close the gap by providing a summary of interesting opinion and debate between two parties.
Generation Z’s Highlight:
Derick L (28 years old): “One time, I had a lunch break with my boss that are 20 years older than me. I was about to just have a casual talk with her, and all of sudden, she started to gave lecture to me about life. I mean, I wasn’t intend to get lectured and most important: why do they always think that they know everything?”
Miller D (30 years old): “Regarding this matter, I’ve actually have a personal experience that happened 6 years ago. My parents always wanted me to pursue career in a big company (I think for them, working in a big company is a huge achievement). However, my dream was always to become a business owner. For the first 3 years, I had listened to them since I need the money as capital. But in the same time, I was also building my side business. It is extremely tiring, working in 2 jobs, until there was a time that I decided to quit my job and focus on my side business. When I informed my parents about my decision, they were not happy about it. They told me that they had live longer than me and they know what is best for me. Short story, I still go against them, and here I am now, a business owner with a flexible working time with 7 figures income. In conclusion, it doesn’t mean that if someone older than you, they know better than you.”
Sarah M (27 years old): “I was known of bold decision, hard working, and ambitious. In my previous company, I had proven myself to lead a several project, meeting and able to close the deal with important clients. One day, I was trying my luck to get a new job title as a lead. Prior the interview, I remembered that it was an old lady HR and she told me that my age doesn’t qualify the job title yet. I confronted her by saying: “Age does not qualify a performance and capability, it would be nice if you can consider my previous award and achievement to proceed with the interview. If, I don’t pass the interview, then so be it. But, please don’t hold me to proceed further just because of my age”. Fortunately, after 2 weeks time, they gave me a shot to do the interview with the hiring leads while they can finally “fairly” tested and observed whether I am capable for the role, without seeing the age”. After a while, I’ve managed to get that job title and the HR were apologizing to me.”
Generation X’s Highlight:
Keith Bollman (54 years old): “One must be careful of generalizations. As an “older folk”, when I say something, I am right. This happens because if I am not sure, I keep my mouth shut. And one of my favorite quotes is from Winston Churchill – “When I was 16, I thought my parents knew nothing. At 21, I was surprised they had learned so much in 5 years.” When you bring your car to the shop for repairs, and it is not fixed correctly, you should realize the people fixing it are the same ones in your high school who could not read and got the worst marks. It’s like the joke, where on guy says, “You’re drunk. And the drunk say, “You’re right, but you’re stupid, and in the morning when I wake up, I’ll be sober. You’ll still be stupid. One must consider the intelligence of the parents/adults that are making the suggestions. Some people do not know better even though they are not adults.”
Steven Pinner (65 years old): “Good question. Now look at it from my point of view. I’m 65 years old. Is the 65-year-old version of me wiser and smarter than the 21-year-old version of me? definitely — by a couple of light years! I’m not joking or making that up. I’m speaking from real true-to-life experience. For me, it is so true that no one could actually possibly doubt it.
Angela Lenhard (62 years old): “Older people have a lot more life experience than younger people. They have already passed through the stages that the younger ones are going through, and so have their friends, so they usually know what is likely to happen in given situations or the bad things that might happen that a younger person wouldn’t know about. They have had more time to study, read, and learn from people and other sources so they just know more about almost everything. The older you get, the wiser you get. So if an older person disagrees with you on something, it would be wise of the younger people to listen to their arguments. Think carefully about it, and don’t discount it quickly. It would be lots more fun to be wrong at first but do the right thing than to make a mistake because you were too stubborn to listen to the advice of someone older.
Closing The Gap
People vary in all sorts of ways; in the nature of things, older people have (on average) more experience than younger ones because they are “older”. However, a lot of people of any age have not had multiple experiences, they’ve had the same experience many times.
And, certainly, older people have had more opportunity to learn things than younger people have. Again, they are older. But some people don’t take advantage of this opportunity.
In my experience, people who say things such as “listen to me because I am older than you” are likely to be in the group of elders who have had the same experience many times and taken limited opportunity to learn things.
I’ve had, in my life, the opportunity to work with two people who were a) Geniuses and b) Considerably older than I was. Neither of them ever said “listen to me because I am older”. Instead, they were smart enough to say “teach me so that I can learn more”. I’ve also known and studied with some other geniuses. They didn’t say this sort of thing either – they let it show. They demonstrated that they really did know a lot of things.
There may be some people who are knowledgeable and expert but so insecure that they need to fall back on lame arguments such as “listen to me because I am older”, so I can’t guarantee that people who use this argument are nincompoops. But a lot of them are.
Message for Generation X
Respect is earned, through capability, skills, wisdom, and attitude. And all of these are not determined by age. I do understand that older folks live longer than younger people, but that doesn’t measure how much knowledge, experience that a person have.
For example, Elon Musk created his video game at age 12, and founded the rocket company SpaceX at age 30 before he became the world #1 richest man now. So, if you sit together now with 30 years old Elon Musk, are you sure that you are qualified enough to lecture him just because you’re older?
Every person path and journey is different from others. Let’s put it in the illustration, Adam (35 years old), and Smith (60 years old). During his life, Adam spent time on exploring, reading knowledge, and hungry for growth. He had trial and error before finally established a successful business at 35 years old. Meanwhile, for the last 60 years, Smith has done minor things in his life, after his work done, he tend to watch movies and chilling. From this illustration, does Smith has more knowledge and experience compare to Adam just because he is older?
Always consider the source, not age.
Message for Generation Z
Elders are former young people who experienced mistakes and when they want to share it with others, it is for a good intention, so that you don’t have to repeat the same mistake and can learn from it.
Rather than treating it as “lecture”, try to think it in different ways of perspective: “secret tips”. That way, you’ll not taking it as it offend you due to your age, but it’s just a simple sharing for caring. Not everyone in any group of people act the same way. You will learn that as you get more experience.
