Miss. Opinionated : Modern Toughness

A couple months ago I read an excellent article on the New York Times about making modern toughness in today's world.

It highlights the need for the youth of today to devote themselves to their own telos - the higher purpose of living - whether that's an ideal, a relationship or a cause or all three.

So often, we forget our telos, distracted by bottomless work and numbing hedonism. It's no wonder that we feel emotionally fragile. Our minds are always in the gear of critical thinking. We've become such cynics, and it's cool to be cynical, it's funny. It's as if you're hedging your own bet so as not to get hurt. We become hardened, we cherish individualism. Sacrificing on your current happiness is weak and obviously an unwanted choice.

But as I get older, I often feel these tugs deep within me, nudging me to attempt to answer these questions:

1. What are my ideals? Where in the world embodies similar values as mine?
2. What kind of people do I want to surround myself with? What kind of relationship do I want to commit to?
3. Is there a cause for my existence here? What is my destiny?

And if you hang around the middle aged, you hear a common story line to explain the rise of the orchid generation. Once upon a time, the story line goes, kids were raised in a tough environment. They had to do hard manual chores around the house and they got in fights on the playground. Then they went off to do gruelling work in the factory or they learned toughness and grit in the military.

Today, we are gifted with the freedom of choice, options galore. A free hand to cherry pick whatever we want in our lives, a privilege perpetuated by our own parent's protectionism, so afraid to let their kids try and get hurt, that we fail to find our higher purpose on our own.

We are all fragile when we don’t know what our purpose is, when we haven’t thrown ourselves with abandon into a social role, when we haven’t committed ourselves to certain people, when we feel like a swimmer in an ocean with no edge.

We must keep striving. I want to look past the apathy, I want to create my own telos.

---

我最近在纽约时报读了有趣的文章，是关于现在年轻人的任性。他强调了今天的年轻人需要投入到自己更高的生活目标，无论是一个理想，一种关系还是一种事业，或这三者一起。我们忘了我们的telos，因为我们会在好像永远做不完的工作中分心，或者贪图享乐。这难免让我们感到情绪的脆弱。我们总是在批判头脑里的思维，然后我们就变的愤世嫉俗，这很酷很有趣。这个就好像是为了不受伤害而下的是赌注，我们变得更坚强，也更加珍惜个人主义，牺牲目前的幸福会显出自己的柔弱。

但是随着年龄的增长，我经常会想到这些问题：

我的理想是什么？在世界上有什么地方能体现和我类似的价值观？
我选择什么样的社交群体？我想要和什么样的人建立关系？
我存在在世界上有原因吗？我的命运是什么？
今天我们有自由去选择我们自己的路。这是来自父母给我们的保护。但是也因为他们的保护，让我们有些害怕去寻找我们的telos。
我们必须继续努力，尽量不让之前坏的想法影响到自己，并且创造自己的telos。