I’m not a grouch, really. It’s just that I’m noticing things that bug me. And I’ve decided that the way to make them stop bugging me is to share them with all of you. So here goes – my Top Three Pet Peeves for the season:
Treating Teenagers Like They’re Nuts, Predatory, or Inherently Dishonest
Really, where did this one COME from? I’m the proud mother of a seventeen year old son. He is loving, funny, has personal integrity to burn and works hard. At first it just made me weary to have people say things like, “And you believed him?” or “I’m sorry, I can’t trust a boy to babysit my children.” Now it makes me angry. According to the class in Adolescent Psychology, which was a requirement for my master’s degree, people his age are inherently idealistic, not dishonest. Yes, they are a bit self-centered, and wouldn’t you be if you were doing all the grown-up things for the first time and hoping that you were doing them right? Most teens I know are trying as hard and as anxiously as they can to please the adults in their lives.
The Idea That Instant Success is Normal
My grandfather used to read Oliver Optic. You know, the guy who first popularized the “rags to riches” notion, who wrote books like “Now or Never” or “Poor But Proud.” I’m on the periphery of the entertainment industry here in Portland (that’s a funny sentence, actually), and have been an aspiring singer/actress myself for most of my life. I’m here to tell you, the YouTube-inflated-concept that it just takes One Big Break to suddenly be a superstar does us all a huge disservice. It takes hard work and a lot of time and gumption to be a success at just about anything. Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes about 10,000 hours of doing something to master it. Divide that out by a 40-hour workweek and it’s…well, I don’t have my calculator with me right now. But it’s a lot.
So if you know anybody who’s working to make a living as an entertainer, don’t expect that they’re going to be the next big hit on “Leverage." They’re taking classes, getting to know people, working as an extra, working for free in student films, and oh yes, being a waitress whenever they’re not doing the rest of their 120-hour work week. Be supportive.
Last But Not Least: People Lie Down, Chickens Lay Eggs
I’ve been waiting for somebody, Noam Chomsky or the President, SOMEBODY, to make an announcement, but apparently they’re not going to. You LIE down, people. You don’t LAY down. Chickens LAY eggs. People LIE down. If you lay down yesterday, that’s OK, because it’s past tense. If you lay something down, that’s OK, because you are the subject and the something is the object.
There. Now I feel better. Thanks for listening.
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Yay teens! I know some fine upstanding ones as well, so I'm with you there.
ReplyDelete10,000 hours comes out to about 5 years of full workweeks invested to master something. I think I put in about 2.5 years and then move on to something else, which is why I've gotten pretty good at several things but have mastered none (except perhaps whistling). But I'm okay with that, because I enjoy the process every time.
Maybe it's the line in Bridge Over Troubled Water that confuses people: "I will lay me down." But it's a person-as-bridge metaphor, so I suppose one could lay down a bridge, though it's more likely one would construct it.
Love. this post. I just did an essay on "ones pet peeves' it was kind of a stupid topic for an english class essay if you ask me, I mean It felt like a three page rant, and I would rather write about something that relates to english, but whatever.
ReplyDeleteI also loved your bit about teens, thank you, someone needs to stand up for us, I would argue we are some of the most stereotyped people in the world.