Another young woman finds herself confronted by an opportunity she never thought of in a job category she never imagined. A young man works under a miserable boss and must develop management skills so his department can function. A relative suffers from Alzheimer’s and a young woman feels called to help cure that disease. They look outside and find a problem, which summons their life. The most successful young people don’t look inside and then plan a life, Brooks says. Yet upon graduation they will enter a world that is unprecedentedly wide open and unstructured.”Ĭollege students are raised in an environment that demands one set of navigational skills, and they are then cast out into a different environment requiring a different set of skills, which they have to figure out on their own. Through their childhoods and teenage years, they have been monitored, tutored, coached and honed to an unprecedented degree.

“This year’s graduates are members of “the most supervised generation in American history.

And even more important, their lives have been perversely structured. They enter a bad job market – the hangover from decades of excess. “This is the litany of expressive individualism,” Brooks warns, and “this mantra misleads on nearly every front.”Įspecially this year, he says, we are conscious of the many ways in which this year’s graduating class has been ill served by their elders. David Brooks wrote a column for the New York Times recently titled “ It’s Not About You.” It is a rebuttal to commencement-season addresses that urge young people to follow their passion, pursue their dreams, and, above all, do what makes them happy.

It's not about you david brooks