TWIF (Part 4): The American Idol Syndrome
If I had to sum up my feelings regarding the growing threat China poses to American young people I would most likely end up saying something like: Ready or not! Here China comes!
To me this exclamation, most commonly associated with the game of hide-and-seek, accomplishes a very important thing; namely, it informs us of our only two options: to be prepared or to be unprepared.
I wish I could say that American young people are working hard to stay ahead. That we are striving diligently to ensure that we continue to deserve the levels of success and affluence associated with the United States of America. Unfortunately, even my bent towards optimism cannot hide a distinguishing characteristic that plagues America’s youth. Indeed, I am of the opinion that American young people are prone to what I call “The Entitlement Complex.”
This entitlement complex could also be termed The American Idol Syndrome. If you’ve ever seen the faces American Idol contestants when Simon Cowell tells them they have no talent, you understand what I mean. Many American young people cannot accept the fact that they don’t deserve high-paying jobs, that they aren’t “beautiful,” or that their voices sound funny.
As one of my readers told me, “Young Americans today [believe that] it’s their “right” to have a education, Social Security, a job, a nice house, a fun car, and plenty of money.” We’ve taken the American dream a “step farther,” she says, “Not only can everyone have an opportunity to achieve their dreams, everyone has a right to have their dreams (the results of the opportunity)—without doing the work.”
In a stark contrast, the majority of Chinese teens are doing the work. They are motivated and they are diligent. They have direction and they get moving. In fact, one of the consular officials who oversees the granting of visas at the U.S. embassy in Beijing said, “I do think Americans are oblivious to the huge changes. Every American who comes to visit me [in China] is just blown away . . . Your average kid in the U.S. grows up in a wealthy country with many opportunities, and many of the kids of advantaged educated people have a sense of entitlement. Well, the hard reality for that kid fifteen years from now Wu is going to be his boss and Zhou is going to be the doctor in town. The competition is coming, and many of the kids are going to move into their twenties clueless about these rising forces.”
My friends, we are not entitled to the affluence our ancestors left us. They have granted us a figurative “cruise control” but we’ve still got to stick behind the wheel. Our continued diligence, provided we focus on important areas, will allow us to stand on their shoulders, but let us never assume that success is a right. It is earned, and right now the Chinese earn it more than we do.
With that understanding I close with an African proverb, which not surprisingly can be found posted, in Mandarin, on the factory floor of ASIMCO Technologies, an American auto parts manufacturer located in China:
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better start running.
Are you running?
September 3rd, 2005 at 3:09 am
Amen. Continued diligence. Running the good race…
be encouraged, you’re doing a great job!
Marshall
September 3rd, 2005 at 5:52 am
Wow, I completley agree with you. Our generation is lacking self motivation. I know if I had the chance to outrun the largest superpower in the world it would motivate me in my work, schooling, and everyday life. I think that scince the kids today are so used to affluence and having things handed to them on a plate, they have no motivation to get anywhere. I don’t think people understand the concept that one day we will have to run the economy, we will have to take care of sick people and that we are the future of the United States. Having a generation of (mostly) lazy teens is not a good start into our future. I guess a reason that I love your blog so much is that you are telling kids this…and thats what they need to hear.
God Bless!
Lauren
September 3rd, 2005 at 6:13 pm
Great Post. I completely agree. Our forefathers handed as a great nation, and there must be young people willing to step up to the plate and learn from past lessons taught by history and the Bible. Our nation is riding well on our fathers shoulders, will we be ready to take up the torch?
September 4th, 2005 at 1:53 pm
Amen…great series. It does irritate me to know end to see our media-oriented society requiring some form of amusement 24/7. The sad part is that it’s even worked itself into the Church!
Father, let revival come.
November 19th, 2005 at 2:55 am
This series is very disturbing, in a good way.
I wish that this message could reach all of America, and they could see how the value of their hours are compared to the value of a chinese hour.
I can only believe that if I keep doing my part, working like it depends on me and praying like it depends on God, as my Grandfather loves to say, then I’ll be fine.
Speaking of Grandpa, he has a wonderful quote he pastes all over his garage and truck.
“Trouble vit us, is dat ve get too soon oldt and too late schmart.”
Wisdom from a swedish blacksmith!
God Bless guys!
~ In Christ, John.
February 20th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
Thank you guys!!! I’m not quite sure how to say what I mean to say, but that’s really inspirational.
September 26th, 2006 at 7:41 am
That’s amazing, but true. Most teens are handed the world on a silver platter, but they never care to look at the price tag attached. And, unfortunately, parents have a habit of cultivating that tendency by never making us kids work for stuff we want. My mom and dad are really good at that, knowing how to balance what we work for and what they give us, but even I know that I am still spoiled beyond what any teen in any other country could imagine. I mean, here I am ninteen, at home, my parents buy my food, my clothes, poay for the gas that I use, and even though I have a job, I don’t use all the money I earn to directly help support my family. But with all the blessings that I have, it’s my responsibility to make sure those who do not have, recieve from me, if ya get my drift.
December 18th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
Awsome Blog! And Thank you. You have no Idea what an impact this site (and this blog/comments) have made on my life.
Love God,
CV.
December 30th, 2006 at 10:40 am
[...] The Rebelution: TWIF (Part 4): The American Idol Syndrome TWIF (Part 4): The American Idol Syndrome [...]
February 1st, 2007 at 8:07 pm
i love your site, and totally agree. it is so sad to see our generation growing up so clueless. keep up the awesome blogs, i look foreward to them!!!!
April 15th, 2007 at 9:27 am
First, how does a person figure out which way he should be running? I know how to I should conduct myself in day to day situations. like holding my tounge when I feel like being sharp. being patient, and choosing to treat people as I myself would like to be treated… but life purpose? How do you figure that out? This is a proverb I got from my daddy’s screen saver: “Vision with out action is only a dream, Action with out vision is a nightmare.” (by the way, love your blog. Allways good, thought provoking and encouraging.)
July 27th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Very true! I know from my own observation that many teens, and even young people in their twenties are very complacent. And the honest truth is that their lazy.Great post!
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Looved your blog! Your point seems well received to all responders. As a parent, it is hard to compete with my teens friends re: providiing stuff. My husband and I beilieve it is a constant but very important struggle to keep our 3 teens busy with service and self-regulated acheivements. Life moves so fast, it is too easy to give in and just give kids whatever they want instead of emphasizing working for things, and doing whatever you can for others without always getting paid! I pray that they will be shown many examples of this through ourselves and others everyday. Thanks!
August 9th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
You are absolutely correct. The reason there are so many chinese teenagers making a difference is because they have a true desire to learn and do their best. American teenagers have so many opportunities they don’t even realize they have. They think everything should be handed to them on a silver platter, and they get upset when it is not. And because of this, there are thousands of teenagers with hours of idle time sitting around the house doing nothing when they could be making a difference. Great post! you have a gift with words!
February 28th, 2008 at 7:27 am
I have only been reading on your website for a few weeks, but I already love coming here to read about these things that I had’t thought about very much. It’s really amazing the difference in the American teen’s to the Chinese teen’s. I think the reason that the Chinese work is maybe because they havn’t experienced all of the many privlegas that most American teen’s have, and also because they have to work.
March 12th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
I love this post, cus I so agree with it except one little detail.
I dislike your analogy of cruise control. Using the cruise control is what the average person is doing, they are coasting by on the hard work of the past. They arent pushing themselves to new distances, new heights. So, Id say that the problem with America is that we are just coasting. Every civilization has done it. England before America, France before England, Rome before France, Greece before Rome, Persian before Greece. Its all in the history books. People get to the top, and then they start to coast, because they are already at the top, why keep pushing? And then they get taken out by the newest kid on the block. I dont know if we cna break the cycle, but I sure am going to try.
March 22nd, 2008 at 9:06 pm
[...] The Rebelution is made up of three fundamental parts. We’ve talked about two of them: character and competence. The third one is collaboration. It’s not enough for us to be individual exceptions. It’s not enough for us to try to ignore the culture. We have to create a counter-culture. The way we do that is by networking, exhorting, and encouraging one another in the fight. By God’s grace, that’s what The Rebelution has become. And when you have a community of young people mutually committed to doing hard things in their teen years for the glory of God, that’s an incredibly powerful thing. [...]
April 7th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
As a public school teacher, in a poor area, I do see one flaw with some of the comments here. Many of my students don’t feel “entitled” to an education- they could care less about learning. They would rather play their video games, listen to their hip hop and rap, and bully others. They have no intyerest in learning- they are in trouble all the time, refuse to respect authority. All I can do is keep fighting- and praying.
April 30th, 2008 at 12:36 am
In general, I don’t generally like sweeping generalizations. :p It may be true that there are many Americans who do feel entitled to benefits without paying costs. But I have seen many who also give freely of their time and talents to inform and entertain people all over the world through the free videosharing site, YouTube. They work hard to learn what it takes to make quality videos; I’d say they start running every day when the sun comes up. Another good thing about YouTube is that it is very easy to see how other people in other parts of the world live. If the Chinese youth are indeed more productive and do more work, it won’t be long before that gets noticed. One might say that is already the case - several of the top channels on YouTube are produced by Orientals.
June 28th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Hmm. What a great concept. I do think alot/most/all of this entitlement feeling is subconcious, becuase otherwise I think alot of American kids would have dealt with this problem. We present the idea as being a problem, but we forget to say that it is at a subconcious level. I say this from expirience…it was hard for me to realize some things and deal with them because I was not looking under my obvious thoughts, I was not looking at my feelings, where the problems were.
P.S. I was at your Richardson Texas conference at Heights church today. GREAT JOB!! I love how you also stress the fact that gloary goes to GOD. Let GOD keep winning.
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:00 am
I agree that American teens need to be hard working and not to expect something for nothing. God wants us to work hard for Him. However, we have to keep in mind that in China, there are millions willing to work for pennies an hour, something that wont get you far here. So there is an advantage that working hard wont neccesarily overcome. Having kids who leave dangerous pollution for the world (already reaching our West coast) and who agree to abort any more than one child per family? No thanks, I’d rather have American Idol teens on welfare.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
American idol seems so small compared to the glory of God. Keep on running and striving for the greater good.
November 18th, 2008 at 9:29 am
This little article says it all. There are so many kids that I know who don’t know what it’s like to do without. By without, I mean without brand new clothes, nice cell phones, expensive trips. It’s really quite sad. I wish that more kids would learn to trust God, and not material things.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:43 am
I see your point, and i def. agree that Americans need to stop taking a comfortable life for granted and WORK for the things we want and need.
But I’ve been to China, and not the Olympics-China that we all saw on TV, but the real, behind-the-concrete walls China. And that is NOT a country we want to emulate, not even academically. I know of a kid who jumped out his classroom window and killed himself when he found out that he hadn’t gotten accepted into a special math program that his parents wanted him to be in. While the focus in America is on becoming famous and popular, the focus in China is on becoming wealthy. Though the Chinese have a more logical goal, that doesn’t mean its the right one. As Christians, we should be focused on neither.
The Chinese are afraid of failure, so they work themselves into the ground. The Americans are afraid of failure, so they don’t even try. As Alex and Brett said in “Do Hard Things,” though, we shouldn’t be afraid of failure at all because we all make mistakes and God can use us anyway. Please set Christ as the standard, not Chinese teens.
March 20th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Great message! I totally agree. We get so caught up with our lifestyle that we forget the “work” part of it all.
I’m reading Kids are American’s Too by Bill o’Reily and he talks about how kids don’t know what their rights are, yet always say they do. Its true that we take a lot for granted like a good education and a good home. I love visiting China and HongKong for that reason, it reminds me that their are people that work hard to EARN the things that almost all of us take for granted. Even having a relationship with Christ is overlooked. We have everything so we don’t lean on him during trouble. We own everything so we don’t realize the aspect of earning something or working hard for those good grades in school.
People are becoming lazier and lazier and taking the easy way out. I’ve heard kids say, “I’m bad at English ok?! I’m just gonna be a musician, school isn’t my thing!” This is a sad truth that we have to battle.
Thanks for this post guys! it really helps to get the mind thinking about how we really should start working and stop slacking. Be doers not hearers only! =)
April 12th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
I believe there is underlining fault here - the blame is quite misplaced. Rather than seeing was is through such a narrow picture frame, it is necessary to step back and look at the whole picture. Parents are the cause of this. It is the actions, and more importantly the consequences of those irresponsible actions, of generation X (baby boomers) that have placed us (generation y) into a negative predisposition for failure. It is the parenting that has changed, not the kids. I agree that this a problem for myself and the rest of the youth today, just remember to place credit, or should I say fault, where it is due. Unfortunately, regression has not yet subsided as “bubble-wrap” generation doesn’t seem to bring much hope along with it. Point is, teenagers today are a product of the parenting that was bestowed upon us by generation X, AND once, and if, we transcend this predisposition, the multitude of problems our generation will face, will have been caused by our parents as well. Such as global warming, the crashing economy (which be fixed before too long, but I promise, getting creidt, buying a house, getting loans, etc - will not be the same), energy dependence, sub-standard schooling (comparative to other countries), etc, etc.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:28 pm
I’m kind of in shock. You see, I just started high school this year. I looked around on my first day and saw all these kids with all this stuff, opportunities I never had in middle school, and they didn’t even do their work and try to get a hard-earned grade. The people around us give us what we need to succeed so often, but most kids, in my highschool at least, don’t think they should have to do anything. It could be, in part, the fault of society and their parents (mostly society) but, don’t these people have free will? Can’t they even do what’s put in front of them to do in order to succeed?Thank you for posting this. It was well written and a good read. It really reminded me of that first day in highschool where I decided to take some responsibility and use the tools given to me. And, to be truthful; I believe it has given me, and my friends who joined with me, a better quality experience in this new environment. Once again thanks for posting this, it made me remeber that and my current pursuit of excellence in highschool. Peace out.
May 2nd, 2009 at 8:24 am
It’s definitely quite disgusting that we Americans can feel such a sense of entitlement to everything without ever feeling entitled to do anything. As a (hopeful) new member of the Rebelution, I’m so glad that you’ve brought this up. I wish that our generation today would wake up and see that you have to sow the seeds and do the tough work in order to reap the harvest.
May 7th, 2009 at 5:12 am
for me, american idol this year is much better than the previous one.
May 11th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
[...] Rebelution is made up of three fundamental parts. We’ve talked about character and competence. The third is collaboration. It’s not enough for us to be individual exceptions. We have to [...]
May 27th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
“The Entitlement Complex” describes perfectly what I have seen at my high school. Many students seem to think that they can smoke, drink, and nap their way to the top.
June 16th, 2009 at 2:47 am
[...] is Flat‘ (see some great thoughts about that book here, or here in four parts 1, 2, 3 and 4) as you might be able to see from this wonderful mindmap by Brandy Agerbeck below, Globality does [...]
July 13th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
After reading all of these comments, I have felt compelled to agree that the “Entitlement Complex” is wild and rampant today. This led me to wonder why this is the case. It seems to me that “Prosperity” in America begets “Ignorance” which begets “Complacency” which eventually drives a wedge between “Pleasure” and “Responsibility.”
Since America is very much a prosperous nation, today’s youth are cradled lovingly in the claws of ignorance. After all, why should any of us worry about anything when worry itself could only rock our boat of prosperity? No, our young citizens have never lived in turmoil, never experienced the stresses of war, so why should they anticipate it now? If you think about it, the greatest war any of our youth have had to endure is the Iraq war which has one of the smallest death tolls in American combat history. Indeed, it is all to simple for youth to be ignorant about the outside world, and therefore complacent about it.
The final step here is to find how complacency can pry apart the pursuit of pleasure and responsibility. While our youth wallow in their TV dinners, they feel an aversion to trying anything new, to being responsible, and even for being competetive. This unhealthy mentality seems to only be perpetuated by a shifting culture which we must fight all the harder as it grows every day. While this disturbs me, both this Entitlement Culture and our Counter Culture are showing their true colors. The only way America can pull herself out of this mess is when our youth open their eyes, sharpen their minds, and choose which side they wish to be a part of.
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:33 am
Wow thanks, that was really insperational and I totally agree! I recently read your book and it’s amazing to find out that my family and myself aren’t the only ones who think this way, I have two older sisters, a younger sister, and a younger brother. We are all homeschooled and us oldest three girls all go to community college (I’m 15, and my two older sisters are 16 and 18). I find it so much easier to resist temptation and keep my eyes on God with having a larger family and alwas having someone around. Our family doesn’t “go” to Church rather we stay home, gather in the living room, listen to an online sermon, discuss that sermon, and either my mom or my dad leads us in worship then leads us in prayer. Reading these entrys has really grown my faith and helped me realize some things. Thank you so much, Rachelle A. Vargo.
August 2nd, 2009 at 2:15 am
I for one find myself agreeing most with Marci. We can compare and contrast American and Chinese teens all we want, but niether of these groups, in general, is winning any race. No race can be won if none of the racers are running in the right direction.
Ialso feel I must make comment about the post by Kyle Oxford. Casting blame is one of the largest and most dangerous symptoms of the Entitlement Complex. No single gruop of people is at fault for the current state of the world. If anyone is to blame it is either the adversary or humanity as a whole but let us leave that question for the theologians to answer.