I have been building another thing at one of the two businesses I own/run. My Gen-Z nephew and niece that work for me at the business both commented separately how fast the thing was being completed.
This caused me to reflect on something I think is missing in our educating and mentoring of young people.
From my perspective, the thing was NOT being completed fast. Not at all. I had spent a previous year planning the thing prior to starting the build. Prior to the planning I had to envision what I wanted the purpose and expected results of the thing. The question that needed to be answered... WHAT IS THE GOAL? The goal needed to be always in my mind. It could change as I learned more, but the final result needed to match the final goal.
Next I had to research regulations and laws. The thing required a customer contract be developed. It is a unique thing so no boilerplate contract exists... I had to start developing the draft by scratch... and then send it to my expensive attorney to finalize.
I had to source the materials to build the thing. But before that I had to decide what materials to use. Should it be made of steel, or wood or both. Should it be painted or raw?
I had to decide if I would build it myself or have it built? I decided I would build it because it is unique and I would have to be there anyway to supervise the build.
Then I had to buy the materials and have them delivered and get parts myself.
Next I had to strategize the build. Some of that planning happened in the design where I use CAD software to create a 3D rendering with dimensions. I had to spend the time to learn how to use the CAD software. Then decide what to cut and assemble and in what order?... that takes time to plan out.
Finally, after all that previous work, the build begins.
Any for anyone not familiar with the need to envision, plan, research, design, source and strategize... and then commit to the hard work to cut, glue, screw, weld, bolt a bunch of parts together in a sturdy assembly that is both attractive and functional, and seismically safe (it will hold about 2000 lbs of items when in service)... they would think it went up fast.
And this point excludes the previous decades of progressive skills-development in all of the disciplines I required to both start the new business, and then to take on this project to build the thing for the new business.
Now, my nephew and niece are both wonderful and hard working young people. Both are amazing kids that had brilliant sports and performance accomplishments in their younger grade school years. Both demonstrated that they understood the need for individual goal-setting and commitment of effort and time to get to an end goal.
They both get it more that most kids.
But many of our youth have never developed this understanding of the incremental steps and related time it takes to build things of value. They have not developed the myriad of skills they need to create things. They carry a marvelous mainframe-powered graphics computer in their hand that is connected to the world of information 24x7 and they really do not understand what it took to get it built. They don't hold any knowing perspective of the investment in progress that supports their modern life.
Not my niece and nephew, but many of these kids are angry protestors following Bernie and AOC, screaming for socialism because they want more. Life is too hard, too demanding of them... it isn't fair that some have more and they have less. The entire system needs to be burned to the ground and remade... while somehow they think this will not impact their data plan and leisure time.
The main piece they are missing is this understanding of goal-setting and required effort to achieve the goal. The planning, the persistence, the dogged determination, the resiliency... the building of a career and a life. Except for politicians, very, very few successful people in the US have it handed to them. And those that do get it handed to them if they don't understand these things... they end up broken and miserable. A large percentage of lottery winners who were poor end up broke and dead.
Prosperity looks easy and immediate from the outside looking in; but, for most people living a comfortable life, it required a climb. That climb stared working in minimum wage jobs while gaining skills and taking on more responsibility to see persistent wage increases.
It is that Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hour mastery thing. The highest wages go to those with mastery skills. There are 2080 work hours in a year. So a full-time focus on a discipline would take five years before that discipline could be mastered. 10 years if focused on it half-time.
In my life I worked in many disciplines. I took drafting and architecture classes in grade school and college. I worked in agriculture, in food service, in retail, in construction, and in manufacturing. I learned how to work with metal and wood. I learned about plumbing and electrical. These were earlier jobs. Then I shifted to IT and completed my college degrees while working. I taught myself how to code working on projects in the evening and weekend. I learned how to manage and lead people. I got a certification in project management in addition to acquiring several technical certifications. I learned how to manage company finances and deal with government regulations. I started my own consulting company. I was hired as a CEO to lead another business, and then started a separate family business where I would build this thing.
I have mastered a number of skills… and together they allow me to make a comfortable living. I have a good life today, but I worked pay-to-paycheck for much of my career climb. That is the way it works. Very few get to bypass these steps and claim an upper middle-class life.
Many of the kids are blowing it because they have not been taught, and they don't seem to have the intellectual curiosity and drive, to develop the skills to invent, make, build, grow, create and fix things. They seem to think that these things just happen and the people that are rewarded for doing the work are just lucky from privilege. They seem to think that they should be rewarded right out of their college campus experience with a six-figure salary with a 30-hour workweek. Do we thank their skill-lacking economic and social malcontent teachers and professors injecting a victim mindset, or do we thank the parents of these kids for failing to have the little darlings do any chores?
Probably both.
No, the thing did not happen quickly. Nothing in my moderately successful life today happened quickly. Like many, I had copious obstacles to overcome. I still do. Luck is not any part of the plan... in fact, my plan expects negative luck (like pandemics and draconian government shutdowns without enough relief payments to my business). And more crap will follow, I am sure. Because that is life... a series of crises, traumas and tragedies where there are some periods of calm in between... and a person has no choice but to accept it, and plan for it, and overcome it.
I hope we can break through to more of these kids... teach them that they are at the beginning of a climb on a ladder to prosperity and happiness that requires a constant focus and effort. They have to work hard and strive. They have to make a plan and execute on the plan. Time spent playing video games and protesting injustice is generally wasted time... at least in this country. And wasting time just puts them further behind and more resentful that they don't have what they feel they are entitled to.
Kids need to be taught that their education is just a boost… to give them assistance for the ongoing project to build a good life. They have so much more to learn to be capable builders. If everything is built for them, they will be unfulfilled, unhappy and still resentful... continuing to use their government-paid data plan and free time to vent and organize to vent some more.
However, to get this started we need to weed out the misguided teachers and professors, and do an intervention with the parents, that are putting all the nonsense victim mindset in the heads of our young people.
Now get busy building something.
Good thoughts, and on point.
There is a tendency among many younger people to take too much for granted, and not to understand the complexity and organizing effort needed to accomplish it.
As an example. some want a all-renewable energy world, so they figure that you just have to ban fossil fuels (and nuclear). Then somebody else is supposed to create the new world they want, like the midnight elves helping the cobbler. Don't bother their heads with pragmatic tradeoffs, investments, schedules, materials availability, demand/load balancing with intermittant source, etc. And in particular, just expect the scientists and engineers to do their nerd magic and make it happen. But this should all happen without much inconvenience to them.
And the people and corporations need to build all this should just do all this work, and take all the risks, for the good of society (ie: as a gift to the person expecting all this) without expecting a filthy profit like capitalist pigs.
I actually sympathize with the younger folks; they didn't create the current cultural climate, they didn't raise or educate themselves - they got their knowledge, culture, expectations from others. And they are getting a raw deal in some ways compared to other generations (and a better deal in others). I'm not trying to frame this as a moral failing.
However, even without moral judgementalism, there is still a problem when people get too disconnected from the means by which their society maintains itself. If you don't understand enough, your politics can ambitiously try to radically remodel society, without understanding why it's a bad idea to just tear down a load bearing wall to open up some more room. Reform and improvement is great, but it has to be build incrementally on a solid foundation - not willy nilly like a fantasy game.
Your example project that seems to come together magically fast is a good illustration, Thanks.