Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
– George Orwell
Simply said, but very true and represents experiences we’ve all surely had with people from the generation before us; whether parents, relatives, teachers or others; and the experiences we’re having nowadays with the generations following us, whether it’s our children, younger colleagues, students or others.
For a good time in our lives we grow up on the receiving end of this, basically getting people talking down to us from their pedestal of wisdom, without us even asking for it; it annoys us, and we mumble to ourselves as they do it, and think “What do they know? We’re smarter than them!”.
Then one day in one of our conversations with someone younger, it just hits us, we’re doing the same thing, we’re lecturing them, we’re doing the exact same thing that used to annoy us when we were younger, BUT we re-assure ourselves, we have the right to, we’re wiser than them, they don’t know what they’re getting themselves into…
It’s funny and ironic, and it perfectly represents the circle of life and how we all move through the different stages of it.
