Joshua Burley is a senior mass communication major from Corinth, Texas.
Are we progressing or regressing as a generation? Well, for starters, we’ve really got to ask ourselves how proactive are we as a generation?
Since the first time I stepped foot into Grambling State University, one of my goals was to continue to pursue academic excellence as well as to pursue a different career path and internships. This was set as a milestone to achieve in the hopes that it will lead me into a better future five to 10 years from now.
Unfortunately that seems not to be the case for many students, not only at Grambling State University, but for other universities as well.
Some of us are still stuck in a world where we are still 10 or 13 years of age.
Some of us were not ready to embark on a new journey where we have to make our own decisions.
Some of us never took the time out to acknowledge our actions can have dire consequences that are either short term or long term.
Another thing that we as a generation are failing to acknowledge is the fact that some of us may be less proactive than previous generations.
When you look back at the previous generations that didn’t have cell phones, computers, etc., they had no choice but to be proactive. They had to look up different sites in encyclopedias, dictionaries, novels, biographies, autobiographies, and other materials to create the resources that they needed.
As technology advances some of us use the technology to our advantage to help implement our skill sets to help us be videographers, musicians, or just simply receiving tutorials in order to boost our skill sets.
Previous generations, such as our parents and grandparents, didn’t have such materials to help get them to where they needed to be; however, they still found a way to receive the information that they needed in order to accomplish the things that they needed to accomplish. This was them being proactive to secure their future, and some of those parents passed those skills on to their kids.
I am a former home-schooled student, and my parents limited those resources that many young people have nowadays, such as cell phones and access to the Internet. We were limited to that because they thought at the time that those items were considered to be a distraction.
Overall we as a generation are progressing. But we have to be careful that we don’t allow machines and technology to control our lives, instead we should be the one controlling it. We have to be careful to not allow these things to do most of the work for us.
Yes, technology was made to help us to endure life easily. But that doesn’t mean you should stop yourself from being proactive. Many have paved the way for us to live a better life, but never forget that life doesn’t last forever. We owe it to the many generations that will come after us to continue to be proactive, just like the previous generations before us.