Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement
As the curmudgeons say: pride goeth before the fall.<p>I'm not saying that Matt is wrong, or that the WSJ is right, but this essay was just a bit too...<i>precious</i>...for my tastes.<p>I don't have the answers, and I don't have much confidence in anything, outside of myself.  That said, if I <i>know</i> one fact about the world, it's that very few of the self-confident 22-year-olds that I meet are going to get rich from their big brains and hard work.  If history teaches us anything, it's that most smart people will fail -- repeatedly and painfully.  So, while it's not the right time for the adults to shake their walkers at the children for running on the lawn, perhaps it would be prudent for the kids to hold back on the self-congratulatory essays, in anticipation of the day when it all goes pear-shaped?<p>I'm not much older than Matt, but even I can detect a distinct generational shift in attitude toward work; I know where the WSJ editorial is coming from, even if I don't agree with its conclusions.  And while I'm sure that the brash 20-somethings that I know <i>believe</i> that self-investment and autonomy are the keys to avoiding their parents' fate, that probably has more to do with the abject failure of all previous models of work, than the proven success of this one.<p>In ten years, some of you will be rich, successful and powerful.  Most of you -- despite all of your hard work and independence -- won't be.  Which brings me to another thing that the curmudgeons say:  the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Youth and arrogance are eternal companions.