What does it take to stay relevant today? I would say, a strong muscle to resist constant change. A muscle those who are 40+ in 2025 find hard to strengthen. As someone in her 40s, I have noticed things people in my age-group and older commonly say. Here are a few gems.
- “Everything today thrives on mediocrity”
This is a popular subject for rumination among people who talk as if when we were younger, all we saw around us was an astute pursuit of perfection. Hearing this laments, it would seem that it’s only now that everyone, everywhere has become lazy and insincere because today anything goes. Anyone can get a job; become famous; become rich; become the president.
Of course not everyone in this age group seems to have a problem with the last one.
Yes, it is true that today there is room for the medicare voice sans the erstwhile gatekeepers of ‘excellence’. This can be irksome for us old fogeys but, let’s face it, has opened new opportunities for us all. The divide between the geniuses and the mediocre has blurred bringing everyone to an unfair level playing field. Might as well develop some genuine humility to be able to survive.
- “Kids today have it so easy”
A lot of people over 40 can be heard saying this after being solely responsible for providing all the comforts to their kids. Insisting on sending them to international schools and annual glamping vacations and buying them the latest of gadgets. Which is okay. But what we end up doing in the bargain is remain completely oblivious to their reality. Which it turns out is just as hard, if not more, despite it all. It is impossible for us to fathom what it is like to be a growing adult in these times. The Netflix series ‘Adolescence’ captures some of this beautifully. The solution is not as simple as dis-allowing them from using the phone. It is complex. Parents have it tough today and so do kids. Nothing like keeping no judgement conversation-lines open and just never undermining their struggles.
- “I am not very good with ‘selfies’”
When you hear someone say this, you can bet a million bucks that they are born prior to 1984. It’s not rocket science to click a selfie. Making it look like it is, is symptomatic of a resistance to change. One may not like to take selfies – that’s a matter of personal preference. But claiming to be disabled at it, betrays an internal rejection of all the change that has happened after the advent of social media. Yes, it was a different world a few years ago. When ‘candid’ was the cool kind of photos. When privacy was paramount. We live in a diametrically opposite world today. Well, it is what it is.
- “Gen AI is making people lazy”
Typically, you would hear an older person say this. Iit is also a dead giveaway of the fact that they have no understanding about gen AI whatsoever. If anything, gen AI makes us more productive. Increases the quality of output when cleverly applied. Depending on human greed and cruelty, gen AI could lead to a healthier balance between work and personal wellness. AIt also holds potential to sieve out the mindless hard workers out of the system, because it takes actual use of the mind to be able to curate gen AI results.
- “Mental health? Come’on get a drink. There’s no problem!”
If there’s anyone who still responds to mental health issues like this, they are most likely touching 40 or are older. They are the ones who didn’t just survive toxicity in their lifetime, but learnt to thrive in it. They also smoke cigarettes. What’s sad is that they feel lost in an ecosystem that assesses quality of output – disallowing them from using the quantity of work-hours put in as a crutch. Understandably, all this talk around mental health is a joke to them. That’s not what it is now, is it?
Companies around the world are learning digital transformation to stay relevant. People over 40 are learning personal transformation for the same reason. The former won’t get us far without the latter.
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