The New Myth of Sisyphus: What The Young Generation of Workers Face Today

 What I have noticed in my decades of work-life as a team leader is that there are 3 self-limiting challenges facing today's young generation of professionals (between 20-40 years old):

(1) Intellectual courage: though not lacking in courage to aspire and fulfill their dreams, I notice the young people of today are not sufficiently intellectually courageous enough to take a contrarian stance from the herd mentality. This is especially valid in the area of politics and global issues (eg the ready acceptance of narratives like climate change, pandemic origins, the bad-guy versus good-guy reporting of the Russian-Ukraine war).

(2) Power of influence: they underestimate their ability to influence and impact their clients/audience/supply chain partners (posting in social media like Instagram and Tik Tok may have the opposite effect of spurring a focused, coherent world view in an era of diverse views and political correctness).

(3) Perspective: their passion/energy levels are admirable but they are not inquisitive enough to form a more relevant, more meaningful and more truthful perspective of the world they wish to influence constructively. (their typical response to this is that everyone's values are subjective. But before they come to that conclusion, have they done enough researching or is the response a matter of convenience?)

As a consequence of a much more dynamic and asymetrically changing world in the millennium, these three mental obstacles are being tested severely, and young professionals are pressured to make the right decisions fast. 

To some extent, I empathise with their dilemma because in my generation and my parents' generation, we had a more stable, more favourable economic and social environment for patient learning and gradual forming of a world perspective/value system from which we can work out our vocation in life.

Instead, today's generation has to contend with a corporatised, politically biased news media (controlled by big tech companies) and social media that promotes instant distractions and 24/7 entertainment. 

As for the intellectually inquisitive, the answers to modern history's most tragic events (WW2, the Holocaust, Hiroshima, genocide, wars, corruption, the meaning of evil) are clinically diluted into superficial terms (eg concepts packaged into "ism") that divert young minds from exploring further the truth of the matter. 

The "big issues" which the powerful governments and organisations have promoted are climate change, diversity and ESG as if moral and spiritual issues are not the root problem of human society.

The New Myth of Sisyphus

Among the parables I can think of, the most accurate one to describe the dilemma of today's young generation is the myth of Sisyphus.

At the end of the day, their barriers to the truth (deeper insights into human nature and the world) is self-inflicted. And this means young workers have to climb a steeper, more frustrating learning curve while at the same time pushing up the stone of world challenges (work-related) that pressurises them to give up critical thinking.

At the intellectual breaking point, they may finally submit their assigned decision-making process to Artificial Intelligence to solve their moral and professional dilemmas (eg ChatGPT, robots, blockchain, CBDCs). 

In other words, this means outsourcing value judgement decisions to powerful tools that are only programmed to analyse processes, not social and political outcomes of a complex world.