Looking Across Generations: Reflections on Work, Success, and Changing Perspectives!

By Mussa Shehe | Wisdom Thrives Media (WTM)

Every generation inherits values, shapes perspectives, and lives a legacy for those who follow. The future begins with what we choose to teach today.

I was at the hospital waiting to be seen when, by chance, I ran into some old friends—people I had grown up with. We belong to a generation shaped by circumstances very different from those of today. We reminisced about waking up before dawn and walking long distances to school. We studied diligently, returned home in the evening, and revised our lessons using nothing more than what we had learned in class. There were no private tutors, no smartphones, no internet, and no parents monitoring every assignment. Despite those challenges, we believed that education was the pathway to a better life.

As our conversation unfolded, however, something caught my attention. Before long, we found ourselves talking about Generation Z. Familiar observations surfaced: they want success too quickly, they lack patience, and they are reluctant to do certain kinds of work. Whether those perceptions are fair or not, I found myself asking a different question.

Perhaps the more important issue was not whether one generation was right and the other wrong, but why we had come to understand work, success, and opportunity so differently. Looking across generations, I began to wonder whether we spend too much time describing our differences and too little time trying to understand how those differences came to be.

One gentleman, an engineer by profession, shared a story about his grandson, who once asked him with genuine surprise, “Grandpa, why are you raising chickens when you’re an engineer?” The child’s question was innocent, yet revealing. Somewhere along the way, we have taught our children that education is valuable only if it leads to an office, a desk, and a prestigious title. Without intending to, we may have created the impression that an educated person should not be a farmer, and that farming somehow belongs to those with fewer options.

Another man told us about a doctor who was criticized by his own children for selling roasted peanuts. They felt the business diminished his professional status. Some even suggested that if he no longer wanted to practice medicine, he should simply “go back to farming,” as though farming or running a small business were signs of failure rather than productive and honorable work. Neither story was really about chickens or peanuts. They reflected the meanings we attach to different occupations and the invisible hierarchy we sometimes create between them.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with encouraging children to become doctors, engineers, teachers, lawyers, or other professionals. Every society needs skilled professionals. The question is whether we have unintentionally taught that these professions alone define success, while other forms of honest and productive work deserve less respect. When that happens, education risks becoming associated with status rather than with the ability to create value.

That conversation also made me reflect on experiences within my own family and among many other families I have observed. Like many young people today, my children have sometimes wished I could provide greater financial support. Yet they, like many of their peers, are healthy, capable young adults with the ability to pursue different forms of productive work while building toward their longer-term ambitions. The challenge is not simply the availability of opportunities, because opportunities are never equally distributed. It is also about how we perceive those opportunities. If certain forms of honest work are viewed as beneath us, then even opportunities that do exist may go unnoticed or be rejected.

Perhaps this helps explain why discussions about younger generations so often become conversations about attitudes rather than circumstances alone. Economic realities have changed. The labour market has changed. Technology has changed. Expectations have changed. Yet our assumptions about what success should look like have often remained surprisingly narrow.

For generations, many of us have celebrated the suit, the office, and the impressive job title, while spending less time teaching that success is fundamentally about creating value—using knowledge, skills, creativity, and effort to solve problems wherever opportunities arise. That may help explain why some young people wait years for formal employment while overlooking possibilities in agriculture, livestock farming, entrepreneurship, skilled trades, and other productive ventures.

Education should expand our horizons, not confine us to a single professional identity. An engineer can successfully raise poultry. A doctor can build a thriving business while continuing to practice medicine. A teacher can become a successful commercial farmer. A lawyer may build a technology company. A journalist may also be a physician. Professional identity and productive enterprise are not mutually exclusive. The contradiction exists only in the assumptions we sometimes inherit.

It is also important to recognize that this is not simply a story about young people. The examples shared during our conversation showed that many members of the older generation have embraced diverse ways of creating value, even while younger family members sometimes struggle to understand those choices. That irony itself invites reflection. Perhaps younger generations are not rejecting work; perhaps they are responding to the messages society has long communicated about which kinds of work deserve admiration.

None of this suggests that mindset alone explains the challenges facing young people today. Many continue to face genuine barriers: limited access to quality education, scarce employment opportunities, unequal economic conditions, and difficult social realities. These deserve serious attention. At the same time, the beliefs societies pass from one generation to the next influence how people interpret those realities, how they define success, and how willing they are to recognize opportunity in unexpected places.

As I left the hospital that day, I realized that perhaps the most important conversation was not about Generation Z at all. Nor was it about proving that one generation understands life better than another. It was about looking across generations with greater humility and curiosity. Before asking why younger people think the way they do, perhaps we should also ask what examples, values, and assumptions we have passed on about work, success, and dignity.

Every generation inherits ideas, questions some of them, preserves others, and passes new ones forward. Looking across generations reminds us that understanding those changing perspectives may be just as important as judging them. In the end, preparing the next generation for the future begins not only with what we teach, but also with what we choose to value.

WTM Reflection

The greatest inheritance we leave our children is not wealth or titles, but the values, perspectives, and opportunities they carry into the future.