As a teenager, I thought it was a horrible thing that my emotions were one with everyone I cared about. If a best friend showed up in a depressed mood to a party, suddenly the happy attitude I woke up with was gone. If a friend was anxious about a test that I was perfectly confident about, that confidence disappeared. What I did not understand as a child is that that empathetic behavior is what would make me a better person in the future.
As an adult, I grew to love that I felt everything in such a strong way, but I noticed more and more that not everyone experienced emotion this way. I was repeatedly told I was ‘too sensitive’ and that I didn’t need to cry just because my friend was upset. Of course I didn’t need to cry, but that’s what my reaction was when someone I loved was hurting. And despite being told over and over it was a bad thing, it is proven to be part of human nature; this is what generation Y is missing.
Empathy is a strong quality, despite what my teenaged self thought. There are too many of the millennial generation who give up on connecting with people in fear of sadness and abandonment. This generation is referred to as selfish and spoiled more than any generation before them, but why is that?
The most prominent issue with the mindset of the “me” generation (millennials) is the disconnect it leaves between each human. Empathy is necessary for a wholesome connection to another human. Whether or not you feel for the woman in the viral video who is a single, struggling mom of five, or you feel for your friend who just went through a break-up, it is the basis of human connection.
As our generation grows into adults, we are no longer striving for love or believing that happiness lies within a family of our own. We think happiness is only in the next place, or the next one after that; places in which we intend to travel to and journey through alone. The lack of empathetic tendencies within our generation is leading to a more depressed and stressed out group of people than ever before.
Since the ‘baby boomers,’ there have been studies showing a 48 percent decrease in empathetic tendencies, including a statement by a researcher claiming that college students today are the most self-obsessed and competitive generation that has been studied.
Research goes on to show that this could be caused by a number of things, including the way our parents raised us (too focused on winning and spoiling us), some blame on social media creating a disconnect between humans, and even citing movies (and all electronics) as a source for our declining empathetic ways.
But whether the cause be electronics or daddy issues (too many material things, not enough love), our society is becoming more and more concerned with where we will get in life that will essentially make us ‘happy.’ The loss of yearning for someone to love and grow with has lead us to a lonely, wanderlust filled journey. What is in this ‘next place’ that everyone seems to be looking for but no one can find?
Nothing. That ‘next place is the place for me’ feeling is just that, a feeling. It does not exist. What we are all looking for is pure human connection. And maybe where one will find that is in the depths of a hiking trail in Japan, but for others it will be exactly where they are once they choose to see what they are missing. Once we take our hearts and learn how to share them with others again, we will find our next place, and it will be with our best friend, boyfriend, or mother’s by our sides.
