Modern Outlook

3 Potential Pitfalls for Younger Generations

November 18, 2021 Eddie Thomas Season 1 Episode 4
Modern Outlook
3 Potential Pitfalls for Younger Generations
Show Notes Transcript

In today's episode we dive into the hassle that moving is, some pop culture news, and the new show I have been binging. After, we dig into what I feel to be the 3 biggest hurdles that people in younger generations have to contend with. We go through what they are, how I feel about them, and what my hope is going forward. 

Eddie Thomas:

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of The Life finance and in between podcast with me your host, Eddie Thomas, brought to you by wealth management services here in Hershey, PA. So the episode today guys we get into right off the bat, I talked about moving, if you're watching the video and I talked about this, but I'm in a new place. And I talked about how I guess long the moving process is and how it is seemingly never what you expect it to be. There's always more to do. So I talked to you then in kinda, that's pretty much what I've been up to the past month, then we get in a little pop culture which, like I say in the podcast, this is not the podcast can't do for pop culture news. However, if you saw the AstroWorld stuff that took place very recently, I was just so taken back by something like that, where I almost had to talk about it because it was just I was over the past weekend just like reading so many things about it watching so many people talk about it that I almost felt inclined to as well. Like I say later on, but thoughts and prayers to the families affected by it and hope everyone knows there's now that GOD OH safe and everything else, but just an insane situation that I feel like I had to talk about because it was something that kinda for a day there, I was just reading articles and like this is absolutely crazy. And then I kind of get into a lighter note, and I talked about the show I've been watching Peaky Blinders again, I know I'm late. But the show has been great. I'm definitely all invested as I can possibly be in something like that. And then I get into the the main topic for today, guys. And that is what I titled there three potential pitfalls for younger generations. And you'll see when I go through them, but the overall highlight of it is just social media is one of them. Instant the want for instant gratification instant returns the second. And then finally and this is a new topic, and I will be making future content on this as well is the metaverse and the potential pitfalls that might come with that as well. So I just wanted to shed some light on what that looked like for trying to bridge the gap between younger generations and older generations and, and hopefully help out a couple younger people out there listening and try to avoid the pitfalls that I say but yeah, guys, thanks for listening, and I won't take up too much your time. Enjoy the episode. Let's get into it. Alright, guys, welcome to the episode, let's get right into it. If you're watching the video side of this, you're gonna see that the surroundings and where I'm at looks very different. So I'm currently in my apartment that we moved into over the past month or so. And so that's the first thing I want to talk about is how absolutely brutal the moving processes, and not even for a fact that like it's not well, I guess it's kind of rewarding, right, it's exciting, you moving into a new place. But the amount of things you like I thought it was gonna be a one trip thing, like we get all the furniture together. But in boxes pack up the clothes, suitcases, boxes, whatever it takes. Put it on a U haul we had like five cars. And I thought that was gonna be it that we're gonna be good. And I was I could not be more wrong. brought everything. fact everything up, brought it over. One trip clearly wasn't enough, probably took like four with one trip having the U haul and then the other trips having just the cars but we still had like four cars. So the fact that it took four trips is alarming. And then even after that we still needed to buy things. So we're moving into the apartment. And we knew we needed to buy like a table for it and some other things. But we got here and I swear to God we packed so many things. Like we had so many boxes, and we still got here and me my girlfriend we're just like yeah, we don't we got to buy a ton of stuff. Like we just don't have enough to even like look plates, silverware. I was I don't know where any of that stuff went in the moving process. I don't know if it's gone or what happened to it got thrown away or what? But we had none of that stuff. I guess we had to buy some furniture which is all normal things. Curtains, curtain rods. I mean, you name it, we probably had to buy it even after having packed everything we own. So either boxes were left behind, or I just had a terrible idea of what exactly it was going to be packed up and brought over and everything we had but on the brighter side of that moving is done. Departments nearly set up totally It's a really cool place, I really like it. And I have this place here where I can record I didn't I didn't have this space in the last place. So it's cool that I can kind of sit down and I have a desk and in the spare room here, and I'm able to sit down and record and go through and do work if I need to from home and or just do this. So that's pretty sweet. And like I said, I really like the place it's walking distance from some restaurants and, and some other things. So it's pretty cool on that side of it as well. But yeah, that's what I've been up to the past like month is just moving in. And then right after that, just trying to get everything together. And there's still some things in boxes, and there's gonna be some things in boxes. mostly my fault. I'm pretty bad at unpacking. But there'll be inboxes for a while. And I'm in no rush to get some stuff out, which I guess should be a sign that I don't really need it. But I'm gonna keep it. Until next time I'm moving on, my guy didn't touch that for an entire year. probably time to go, probably on the go. But like I said, hopefully that's next year, I don't have to deal with that. Until then. And those boxes will sit there and collect dust. But yeah, be gone through the moving process reasonable pretty much anytime ever, you know that it sucks. You know that it's such a long day or a couple of days. And it's stressful. But once you're done, it's like it's such a sigh of relief. Like you can just breathe and just be like, alright, that's over. Now within this, set the place up and go from there. But it's all fun. It's all good, especially when it's all done. And you can finally sit there and officially be done. Not there yet, but I'm looking forward to that. But that's really been it guys, that's really been from, from what I've been up to. On my side of things. This past week, though. If you're following pop culture news, and typically this is not where you're going to come to get your pop culture news. But I thought this was just so crazy that had to bring it up first of all my condolences thoughts prayers, out to those impacted in a negative way. But if you saw the AstroWorld stuff with the Travis Scott, concert and festival, it is just insane. So if you don't know what it is pretty much the concert supposed to have, the festival itself was supposed to have 50,000 people in attendance for an all day festival where Travis Scott, who's a rapper comes on at the end of the day. And performances that it's kind of like the, the end of the day into the next one. And it's like the finale of the day, I guess. And so they're supposed to have 50,000 people, at least that's how many tickets they sold. But there's videos of just people crashing the fence and bossing through the barrier to the point where it's like, way more than 50,000 people got in at least they're assuming so it looks like it and all the videos. So if you watch videos of it, it's just a sea of people, an absolute sea of people just crushing each other. And they all rush towards the stage. And I guess some some people unfortunately died and others got hurt and stuff like that. So obviously, like I said, my condolences to those impacted in a negative way. And obviously I hope their families all right, but just insane. Absolutely crazy that that happened. Like I said, another place you're gonna come for pop culture news. But so once I once I watched it, it was one of those things where like, I just couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that that many people were there that that terrible thing could happen. And that's something that's supposed to be fun, like a festival. Pretty, pretty bleak way to start the show. So I'll try to transition off this quickly. But if you haven't seen it, just try to avoid most of videos. But if you get a glimpse of one, you'll see what I'm talking about with how crazy it is. And how just insane it all is. I don't know what the fallout is going to be. I don't know if there's going to be well I know there's some lawsuits pending on that side of it. And I don't know if the organization's will get in trouble or what the safety protocols will be going forward. But there's got to be something that something that happens at least hopefully the families that were impacted were I guess, compensated or I don't know there's really not much you can do right but hopefully there's something good that's done there. So transitioning off very sad topic because again, not what now you guys come here for the other thing in the past month that I've kind of seen or I've been watching consistently, now actually might make this more of a more of a part where I kind of talk about what I'm watching or reading, but I don't watch it in the show Peaky Blinders. And if you don't, it's been out for a while. So I'm really late to this and admittedly really late, but it's pretty much just about like gangsters and 1910 to 1925 whatever I'm in season three right now so not trying to get spoiled for me and look anything up. But it that show is friggin awesome. It really is it's so cool. I'm just so I guess invested in it. Like, it takes a lot for me to be invested in a show to the point where I am. But every night, it's just like, let's turn that on watch hours of it on and just binge it. Go from there. But that's really all it's been it. That's all I've been watching recently that like sports. But if I'm not watching sports, I'm probably watching Peaky Blinders. And it's just so interesting. If you haven't watched it, I recommend only if you're into like, there's a lot of gory stuff. And that's out of it, which isn't always like great to watch, like he kind of look away sometimes. But if you get past that part of it, I think the story's really cool. And the actors are good. And like I said, I'm super invested. So I think there's five seasons, I'm not looking forward to finishing it. It's one of those things where like, you just don't almost don't want to finish it. Just keep watching, but is what it is. I'll find another show after last shows like this with was probably Game of Thrones, which is probably my favorite show of all time I don't get the hate it gets for the last season is what it is, they just wanted to wrap it up. But that's really all been up to you guys moving. As you could see if you're watching the video. Watching videos on AstroWorld. And then in the meantime, watching Peaky Blinders, I know, there's some three random things, but really haven't had too much time for too much else being that moving takes up 90% of your time when you're doing it. So the topic today that's outside of those, and it's not really a finance topic as much as it's just kind of, like a lifestyle topic for for younger people. And I'll loop it into the investing side of things at the end of it. But so a listener had said that they really want to know, I guess the mindset of younger individuals, and why maybe they act the way they do. Why is it that? I don't know just their overall actions? What what what makes a younger individual tick, why why are their actions the way they are. And so it had me thinking, and I definitely wanted to make some content around it. And if you know who you are, if you're listening, so I thank you for the topic. But I was thinking like, How can I bring this into something that I can kind of talk about on here and make it worthwhile for everyone, and also just entertaining. So what I came up with, is, hopefully something where younger people can listen and understand and kind of relate in and think about some things. But also, if you're older, you also kind of get some, some new light shed on on what a younger person is going through the these days. And I don't know, maybe, maybe just open up a little door for everyone that's listening to kind of see the other side of things, or kind of look at themselves if you're younger. But where I went with this was, I want to talk about the three specifically three pitfalls that I think the younger generations talking, probably born 9090 And after, might fall into, or have been falling into for a long time now and are gonna have to work to get themselves kind of out of this, or not kind of fall victim to these things. But so what they are and so as social media, that's a no brainer, instant gratification or wanting instant return as the second one. And I'll get into kind of what I mean on that side of it. And the the third one's really new, but it's something that I'm going to be talking about a decent bit going forward. And that's the metaverse. If you don't know what that is, I'll kind of break it down. But let's start with the social media side of things. So the reason I had this as the number one Pitfall, and I'm pretty sure it comes to no surprise that it's on this list, at least for myself is because the amount of people that are on social media obviously is insane. The ton of people pretty much everyone you know, it's almost weird to not be on social media now than it is to be on social media, which is obviously shows you kind of what the impact social media has on the world. But it has a really negative impact on on some younger people that are just too enthralled in the life that people put up on that side of things. And speaking for myself, I've actually kind of stayed away from that side of it. I've never been super into social media. I think it's kind of cool. If you think of it from like connecting with people that you don't really see often or kind of seeing into people's lives. That's out of this cool your friend, but the path that it's taken over the last 1015 years and how fast it's happened. It's hard to wrap your mind around. So my first kind of point that I had here was most of what you see on social media, if you're younger, are people living really fake lives, meaning they only put the highlights of their life up. And while that's great, you want to celebrate people's High Times, they, if they're doing well, you want to congratulate them, you want to see them doing well, we want to be happy for him. And if you're doing well, you want to show people that you're doing well, and there's no one can really blame you for that. But only putting that out there only putting the best stuff out there. People that are on social media, all the time seeing these things, they kind of think that's like the new normal, like the normal is to live this highlight reel life, where you're only doing the most fun things, traveling, having the most expensive dinners, getting the coolest cars, going to the coolest bars, seeing the coolest people, whatever it is, they're gonna think that's just like, what everyone does 24/7 all the time. And it's clearly not. But people wanting to chase this lifestyle and cultivate and craft this image to people that they are incredibly happy and they're doing insane, cool things and don't get me wrong, there's people out there that are hats off to them, I'm really happy for you. But a lot of people aren't just horrible people is wake up, go to work, come home, watch some TV, go to bed duty on the next day. And then you have your vacation. So the year and you have your trips, you hang out your friends, but that's normal life. Like that is what normal life is. For 99% of us, myself included. There's obviously people a little bit insane lifestyles that not everyone can live, whether it be because of financial reasons, or you're just not into that thing, or whatever it is. But not everyone can live the lifestyles that people put up on social media. But the issue is, when people see that on there, they think that has to be real, that has to be what I'm supposed to be doing. And it's really not. And because of that they're kind of chasing this, this lifestyle, they can't really get to, they can't really obtain. And when they feel like they can't obtain it, they start I don't know feeling depressed or sad, or whatever it is. And, and a lot of times people think there's nothing to feel bad about feel sad about, like, it's just social media, it's just pictures. But when it's your life 24/7 It's kind of all you know, and you've grown up with it, which is kind of what we're the generation we're moving into. Now, this is all they know, is having social media. There's obviously a larger amount of people that didn't have social media before. So now they kind of see it as they saw what reality was before social media, social media came along, didn't really change our lives all that much. And now they kind of see what life is social media now. But they have that anchor in the past where they know what real life is, like, they know not everyone's living these highlight reel lives that they have to compare themselves to. And they don't feel like that to compare themselves to everyone because they don't care what anyone else's business is. But the issue now that we're falling into is that people are growing up with social media, and it's all they know. So they only know how to compare themselves to other people, or they only know how to compare their feed versus someone else's social media feed, and what their last post was, and how many likes that got, versus what someone else's post got and how many likes that was able to get for them. And it's just really unhealthy in documentaries have come out about it. And spokes person, people have come out about it and just said like, Hey, this is not how life's supposed to be. You have to understand that it is a deep thing. But it is fake. People are putting their best, they're filtering everything, they're putting the best life up there, they're only putting the highlights, you can't buy into it, you can't buy into the noise. But when you're only looking at that, and you're looking at it six, seven hours a day, and you're just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. It's just what you're used to seeing. And you see it day after day, hour after hour. It's impossible not to get wrapped into I feel like for some people, and you're never going to know what the actual situation is for the people you're seeing on social media. Even if they put up a post of them being incredibly happy. It might not be something that is actually true. But unfortunately, you don't know that you only see you only see the smile. And that sounds pretty deep. But I mean that's the kind of the reality of the situation. For those that aren't. I guess as into social media, it's easier to kind of look past those things. But I definitely feel for those that are just super I guess in the weeds of social media and see it all day every day I get it. I get why that would be kind of tough to see over and over and try to react But ultimately what's going to have to happen is the the generations that are growing up with it are going to have to learn how to juggle. What is reality in social media, and what is actual reality of life. And that that's means not buying into the material thing you see you just to flex it on your Instagram, or not taking these insane trips just to take a million pictures and live it through your phone, when you could just experience it in real life and have the memories from it, and not need to post about it a million times. So I'm curious to see what happens going forward of people trying to juggle both of those these things. And as we learn more about social media and the effects it has on on people and kids growing up and overall society. I'm curious to see how that struggled. I hope it struggled well going forward. I hope the big businesses like the Facebook's, I guess matter now, but Facebook and Twitter, tick tock, I hope these companies come forward and kind of try to help the situation. I'm not sure if they will. But that definitely needs to be juggled going forward. So that's definitely the first pitfall just kind of falling into social media, the fake lives and happiness that show they're 24/7. And just trying to get out of that. Or at night and trying to get out of it, but just trying to be they have a healthy relationship with it. I think that'd be helpful for a lot of younger people at this time. But social media kind of loops into the second pitfall, or potential pitfall that I see. And I see instant gratification or instant return. That it seems like younger people are searching. And it's no surprise that younger people do not want to go to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, even 12 hours a day, five days a week, or even eight hours a day, five days a week. They just don't want to do it or not as much anymore. And that's again, probably because social media what they see on TV, or not TV, but online. But it's again, that's just not reality. And I get worried that younger people kind of, they're going to chase this instant gratification, the instant return of all their actions, they're going to try to get the get get rich quick, so I don't have to work anymore. And the value of long term gain, long term work to long term route of fat gratification, will kind of fade. And that's that's really not good. Because it feels good working for something for a long time, it finally coming true, you finally see the results of all your hard work. And you have those couple minutes where you get to enjoy it, versus when someone puts a post up and 100 people like it in a minute. And they're like, Wow, that must be This must be what what Everyone's searching for, and it's not. There is merit, to sitting down and working eight hours, 10 hours a day and putting in a good shift for the day and getting some things accomplished. Time after time, day after day. I'm not saying work your life away. And I think you're gonna see that the younger generation that they are definitely working towards more of a work life balance. And I don't think anyone can really say that the bad thing. But unfortunately, the work life balance has a tendency to shift more towards the life side of things than the work side of things. And if that happens, it goes back into you kind of need the instant return of I'm not working 12 hours a day because I can try to get my money or experiences or whatever it is, within a day or two days. I don't need to do it for five days a week. This is not not sustainable. Gonna burn a lot of people out when they kind of realize that instant return and instant gratification isn't a thing, at least not all the time. At least it shouldn't be. And it does, it does definitely worry me. Because there's like I said there's there's merit to earning something to working toward something and seeing all your hard work pay off over time that not everyone has to see. And when it finally pays off, and you can feel good about that it doesn't have to be instant. And I guess the the major especially from an investment side of thing with regards to the instant gratification or return is the risky, risky, invent investments that people are willing to take on. Because this is the thing that will get them a large sum of money so they don't have to work or they'll get rich immediately and get to show their friends how rich they are. And again, this I'm not talking I'm talking very generalities not talking about specifics here. But I think especially over the past year or so you're seeing more people Coming into investing or working with just unrealistic ideas of what the return is going to be, or what it's going to take to really have success. And success is typically something that takes 20 to 30 years, or at least it hasn't passed. But they're looking for that success in a month. And so they're taking these risky investments, whether it be GameStop, or AMC, when people are getting in just to try to get rich, quickly, or try to turn it have turn around a very impressive return. Get out, get your money and go from there. But unfortunately, what people don't get is because you see the stories of people that are able to do it, that are able to go in, have an unreal trade or investment, make a lot of money and go from there. But you don't hear the stories about the also a lot of people that weren't able to do so and maybe got burned to doing it or lost some money. And just trying to take a step back for the younger generation and just realize that, like, I don't need to risk everything in order to gain everything I can, I can do this slowly, I can chip away, I can work a couple extra hours, make some more money, invest this slowly into the market, try to get a good diversified portfolio, I don't need to be rich tomorrow, I can be rich, 20 years from now, 30 years from now is just as good. And that's more than fine. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people think if I can just get rich tomorrow, I can then buy all these things and show people on social media that how I got rich, and then I'll turn around and sell some courses about how I got rich. It's just not not not how it should go, at least in my opinion. Again, the people that did get rich quickly, or did make a ton of money off of one trade or investment, and did have that instant gratification instant return, they're gonna say I'm dumb. And I mean, they did well. So hats off to him, I'm just speaking for the general public in the fact that it doesn't always happen that way. Or we'd have a lot more people walking around like that. But unfortunately, the unfortunate reality is that nine times out of 10, it just takes hard work with a lot of consistency. And being on the safer side of things, to have that long term wealth, gain and happiness. And I hope I hope the younger generation can kind of fall into that and see that that is ultimately how you get there. And no matter what you see on social media, or what your friends tell you. That's just not the case for everyone. And I do hope younger people see that I do get worried along your social media goes on and the more people use it, that that idea will slowly go to the wayside. But I think there's there's some real possibilities out there that when the younger generation kind of wakes up to it and realizes that not everyone on social media is telling the truth. And not everyone gets rich overnight. And not everyone who's on social media who looks like they have money or the looks like they have everything even has everything I might have nothing in there's good at pretending I feel like once people kind of young generation hopefully realizes that would be better off for it. So that's kind of the second pitfall that is just the the instant return instant gratification. Get rich quick. I need this today, not tomorrow. I need this tomorrow, not two years from now. It's just not healthy. There's there's comes a lot of a lot to gain from working for things. And then finally, and this is like social media on steroids. The internet on steroids is the metaverse and so I'm not gonna dive super deep into this today, because I am going to put out some stuff very soon that dives really deep into the metaverse. But what I will cover today is if you don't know what it is, it's pretty much if you know what the Sims are, which is just you have like a virtual character that you'll live a life with. And it's like your dream life. You could do whatever you want. And play that video game is now going to be potentially reality in the next. I don't know, I can't really put a year and that will say 1015 20 years. And so the reason I'm super worried about the metaverse going forward for younger generations, and as why it's my third potential pitfall. If people aren't safe or I guess careful with how they use it is because before social media came out, everyone thought no I was going to use social media. Now with the metaverse and like I said, what it is, is real life video games you put you put on glasses or you put on some goggles, if you've seen the VR goggles at Facebook or Microsoft put out and you enter into this world, and it's all you see. Any could walk around you do, you could do whatever you want in this online world. And I'm worried that that is going to become so addicting for younger people that they can mold this ideal, perfect life online. That why would they really care about what they have in the physical world, because everything's online anyway. So if I'm winning that game, I'm winning the whole game. And I don't agree with that. And I assume a lot of people don't, but the more the younger generation kind of grows up, and this is all they see. And this is all that's in front of them. I think this digital world that people will be living in, is going to take kind of a world of its own that that maybe we don't see right now, and not to be all negative, I think some really cool things are gonna come from it. So I think there's gonna be a lot of cool communities that come from it. I think there's gonna be a lot of cool, I guess, progressions, technology, there's gonna be a lot of good that that comes from the metaverse and having this digital world where people can go and communicate and talk to one another and, and live a life that maybe isn't real possible in the physical world. But the issue being that, unfortunately, I feel like people might get kind of caught up in that even when they shouldn't. And I think we're seeing on social media, people get caught up in that and they shouldn't. So if it's that times 10. And it's literally something that you can go put on your goggles and interact and like you're there. And it feels and looks real, won't feel real, because it's digital, but it looks real. He could spend hours a day there, I get worried that it's gonna become incredibly addicting. And people will put more of an emphasis on that world than they will on the physical world. And so like I said, I'm going to dig into this way deeper on the next bit of content that I record and put out. But in bare base bones, it's and this is so so this is Facebook's literal definition of it. Well met us definition of it. The Metaverse is a set of virtual spaces, spaces where you can create and explore with other people who aren't in the same physical space as you. Meaning if I'm here in Hershey and say, Hello, friend in California, I can put on this pair of goggles. And we can be in the same place as long as they also had their goggles on. And we could do whatever we want, be whoever we want to be, do whatever we want to do. And we can create and join others and whoever else is doing this. And it sounds very utopian. It sounds like you can't lose and that. But unfortunately, it's not reality. I think people want to careful, and it's going to be so new, people getting caught up in it and people aren't careful, it might be something that they're kind of stuck in and are gonna have to go through the phase where it's the physical world means more, I think there might be a gap for some where the digital world means more. And then reality will kick back in where the physical world still means more. And it's kind of too late. And they didn't they didn't realize or they got caught up in the metaverse side of things and don't really know how to get out of it. Or didn't take the steps forward in the real life to to make it a good one. And I'm worried about that I am really worried about that side of it. That's that's definitely a big pitfall as well, but like I said, I'm definitely gonna, next week put together something that is more in depth on that side of things. But so those are my the big kind of pitfalls that I see for the younger generation between social media and the influence that has on people. The instant gratification want for instant return and the get rich quick stuff, which just leads the risky investments, and the metaverse and everything that might be going forward. And so like I said this wasn't really anything about investing or finance. This is definitely more of a Life episode. A little bit about finance with how people kind of take risky investments when they it's not always necessary. But definitely more about life and definitely trying to just kind of connect the gap there is between the older generation that don't understand why younger people don't want to work or just rather be on their phone than being there. Real World, and rather talk to their friends online and talk to him in person versus younger generation that this is all you really know, this is all you only know is to go online and talk to people because it's easier. And why why work when you try to get rich quick is it there's a lot, there's a huge disconnect there for a lot of people. And I totally get it. And I fall in this weird gap where I feel like I'm kinda in the middle of things. But I think kind of going through this and talking about it, especially going forward as well as things kind of continue to increase on online and that all gets built out and the real world continues to chug on top along, it's definitely something that's needed to be talked about. So I hope you guys kind of took something from it, or just kind of see where I'm coming from on that side of things. And if you're younger, if you take this and you kind of look in the mirror and and see what I mean, or relate a little bit, that's awesome, I will be good. Take something from it. If you can reach out to me, obviously, I want to talk about anything. Then if you're older, and you see now that if it's all you know, it's all you know, there's nothing else really to it, it's kind of hard to break out of that chain. So thanks for listening, guys. If you like what you heard, reach out, I'm willing to have conversation with anyone about about anything. It's awesome when I get feedback about what I'm talking about, and people like what they're hearing so that's always good news and makes me really happy and feel free to subscribe or leave a like leave a review whatever it may be guys, but like I said, thanks for listening, Stay happy, stay healthy, and I'll see you guys on the next one. Securities offered through securities America Inc. 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